In need of ‘constant’ connectivity

Smartphones are addictive, that has been proven, and we are using them for more and more complex and simple tasks every day. With thousands of apps, hours of media and a whole world of information available all of the time, it can be difficult to drag our eyes away from those tiny screens that offer us a glimpse into what is happening in the wider world.

For all of the above to happen we need internet connectivity. Wi-Fi is the fastest, but will never cover the large areas that we roam in and is limited in its scope. Mobile data is the technology we use to do almost everything on our smartphone. Think about how you use your phone and how many of your apps require internet access to work. Facebook, Twitter, train times, multi-player games, navigation, maps, online calendars, email and whatever else you think of. Mobile data is a requirement and something that we require 24 hours a day.

Smartphones of today would be 10% as useful without mobile data and we need to understand that the phones are just a small part of a huge invisible machine that keeps us connected every day no matter where we are. The user demands are harsh and the pricing has to remain low to make this technology accessible and this is where the challenge lies.

Network operators are constantly having to improve their coverage and bandwidth to cope with the demands of their millions of users and this is an unforgiving task. A 17 year old girl today uses 10 times the bandwidth a businessman would have used just 4 years ago and it is said that mobile capacity demand doubles every 3 months. Think about that for a moment- the amount of capacity used today will double in 3 months and the amount used in 3 months’ time will double again. And so on and so on.

So if you view your network operator as nothing more than a company that takes your money, think about the investment they need to make to keep you connected 24 hours a day. It is far from easy.