Mobile Satisfaction Plummets, Social on the Rise

iPass has published its quarterly Mobile Workforce Report and found that the percentage of users who identified themselves as “satisfied” with their cellular service dropped from 87% in 2011 to 62% in 2012 – a 25 percentage point drop. The impact is greatest with regard to data services where only a third of users describe themselves as “satisfied.” The survey is based on responses from more than 1,800 mobile enterprise employees at 1,100 enterprises worldwide; it was conducted between January 11 and February 3, 2012.

Of course, this is pretty much a problem of our own making. The report also found that the average number of mobile devices carried for work increased from 2.7 to 3.5 over the last year. Not surprisingly, tablets are a growing part of the mix being used by 64% of respondents, up from 41% in 2011. That will put even more strain on mobile networks as Cisco reports that in 2011, mobile data traffic per tablet was 517 MB per month, compared to 150 MB per month per smartphone.

What is keeping the ship afloat is Wi-Fi. Business users are reporting they are within range of a Wi-Fi network 61% of the day, and 58% report using Wi-Fi more than two hours a day on their smartphones, 73% on their tablets, and 83% on their laptops. Clearly the “bigger screen” devices can make better use of the higher capacity Wi-Fi can provide.

The report also found that 67% of mobile workers use social media for work. Half say they use it to network with colleagues or business contacts, 30% to learn about a work topic, 26% to communicate with contacts, prospects or candidates, and 18% to research a prospect or candidate. LinkedIn is the enterprise social network of choice with 70% of mobile workers using it, more than Facebook (18%), Twitter (17%) and Google+ (14%) combined.

A separate study conducted by ReRez Research on behalf of Siemens Enterprise Communications also found that enterprise workers have become increasingly mobile and distributed, with most enterprises having only 20% of endpoints as dedicated to phones at headquarters locations. The largest number of distributed endpoints were at branch locations (39%), followed closely by mobile phones (33%).

All of this pretty much jives with what we’ve been saying at UCStrategies and it does provide some insight into where SIs and VARs should be putting their emphasis. The hulking 5000+ line PBX job can still be found, but the distributed nature of work and the potential for trunking savings through consolidating network access gives a big boost to cloud-based services.

However, the growing importance of mobile on laptops, tablets and smartphones could mean the percentage of users with no desk phone at all will continue to grow. Further, if user dissatisfaction with cellular data services continues, there is a growing opportunity in Wi-Fi infrastructure. The iPass survey found greater dissatisfaction with cellular data services than voice, but shifting voice traffic to Wi-Fi holds significant savings potential, particularly given the fact that users are saying they are within range of a Wi-Fi network 61% of the day. They did not specify whether that was an enterprise Wi-Fi network or a public hot spot, but if they are using the latter, SIs and VARs had better be offering secure voice offerings.

The other shocker is the shift to social tools which may lead to a decrease in use of more traditional media like phone calls and emails. A quarter of mobile users report using LinkedIn to communicate with contacts, but LinkedIn only provides an email-like function. When they start adding voice and video type capabilities like we have on Facebook and Google+, look out!

We’re going to be talking about all of these developments at the UC Summit in La Jolla come May, so if you want to be in on the conversation, it’s time to get your application filed.