A report by the website Broadband Expert has shown that mobile broadband sales in the UK have declined by 57% as the technology fails to live up to consumers’ expectations.
Anyone who has experienced mobile broadband knows that the connection speeds vary from slow to snail-pace. For most, the speeds are similar to those old dial-up connections. Whilst it offers a handy way to get connected outside of home or office, with the growth of Blackberrys and iphones, the need for a remote PC connection has reduced.
At the moment, from a network point of view this is probably a good thing. Many networks are creaking under the strain of people constantly checking Facebook for updates through their phones. So perhaps the drop in mobile broadband connections will have relieve this strain. Of course the drop in sales for the mobile operators is less of a good thing.
The hope is that the roll out of LTE (Long Term Evolution) network connections will give mobile broadband the shot in the arm that it desparately needs.