In a recent Heavy Reading survey of more than 90 mobile network operators, network performance was cited as a key factor for ensuring a positive customer experience, on a relatively equal footing with network coverage and pricing. By a wide margin, these three outstripped other aspects that might drive a positive customer experience, such as service bundles or digital services.
Decent coverage, of course, is the bare minimum that operators need to run a network, and there isn’t a single subscriber who is not price-sensitive. As pricing and coverage become comparable between operators, though, performance stands out as the primary tool at the operator’s disposal to win market share. It is also the only way to grow subscribers while increasing ARPU: people will pay more for a better experience.
With 5G around the corner, it is clear that consumer expectations are going to put some serious demands on network capability, whether in the form of latency, capacity, availability, or throughput. And with many ways to implement 5G — different degrees of virtualization, software-defined networking (SDN) control, and instrumentation, to name a few — network performance will differ greatly from operator to operator.
So it makes sense that network quality will be the single biggest factor affecting customer quality of experience (QoE), ahead of price competition and coverage. But there will be some breathing room as 5G begins large scale rollout. Users won’t compare 5G networks based on performance to begin with, since any 5G will be astounding compared to what they had before. Initially, early adopters will use coverage and price to select their operator. Comparing options based on performance will kick in a bit later, as pricing settles and coverage becomes ubiquitous.
So how then, to deliver a “quality” customer experience?