There’s a Disruption Opportunity in Providing Seamless Data Connections in Dead Zones

By Philip Mustain, CEO/Co-Founder, Mobolize, Inc.

Mobile operators face their share of market disruptions that cause issues, but those same disruptions can also provide opportunities.

One of these disruptions is the growing use of Wi-Fi networks. With more and more of the world on the move for business or pleasure, Wi-Fi becomes a challenge for mobile operators to serve their users efficiently and cost effectively.

The issue is the conflict between the combination of all those mobile users that move amongst the array of Wi-Fi and cellular networks and the mobile device that struggles to stay connected to a workable network. The result is dead zones where data connections are lost or reloaded, where there is no smooth back and forth handoff between Wi-Fi and cellular.

What mobile devices are not good at is smoothly transitioning between Wi-Fi and cellular networks. They tend to hang onto Wi-Fi networks past their service range and won’t let go. There is no handoff to maintain a constant, smooth connection so streaming music or video, apps, websites and GPS connections stop or drop.

Dead zones frustrate users who tend to blame their mobile operator for the poor service and they often turn off Wi-Fi and use cellular to get a better connection when the Wi-Fi network becomes unresponsive.

However, if the mobile operator considers this dead zone disruption a place for opportunity, poor customer experience issues can be solved. What is needed is a smooth, seamless connection between Wi-Fi and cellular. Where a handoff becomes a handshake.

The opportunity can also be a solution to relieve cellular networks overloaded with increased use of video and data by improving users access to Wi-Fi. Network capacity can be strained as more people use the cellular network for streaming video and other data heavy services. When the network is overloaded, stuttering and buffering happen, even more frustrating for users. And if a user is throttled because they are close to using up their plan partly because they forgot to turn Wi-Fi back on, the frustration climbs higher.

Operators can keep users happy by providing the fastest possible user experience with a balanced mix of Wi-Fi and cellular connections that happen smoothly and seamlessly.  A solution that increases data performance and takes users out of the dead zone.

Mobolize also views disruptions as opportunity. Learn more in-depth information on dead zones and how operators can gain control in Mobolize’s next blog.