Indoor Wireless Call Quality Experience Not Improving - Report

On the heels of J.D. Power and Associates' recent report on wireless call quality performance, Spotwave, a supplier of carrier approved in-building wireless coverage products, reveals that the majority of website inquiries to the company regarding indoor coverage enhancement come from areas where outdoor wireless coverage is sufficient. Spotwave surveys also indicate that most North American subscribers experience impaired coverage at home or at work.

Spotwave's findings, which are based on inquiries that the company received from both business and residential customers in the past three months indicate that despite adequate reception outdoors, subscribers are plagued by dropped and missed calls indoors, as well as poor data throughput on their wireless devices. The company also surveyed subscribers on the incidence of poor call quality at home and at work.

"Our statistics and recent surveys reinforce the fact that you can have service from carriers asserting the best network and be surrounded by cell sites, but if your facility is made of cinderblock and steel, or your home office is in the basement for example, you may not have adequate coverage inside," said Bill Carlin, CEO of Spotwave. "Poor indoor coverage quality is the single biggest barrier in the trend of landline displacement or 'cord cutting' and will definitely impact the deployment of high speed wireless data services if the issue is not addressed."

Based regionally on where indoor coverage complaints and inquiries come from, the results show:

• The highest number of indoor wireless complaints comes from the West region at 25% of all coverage inquiries nationwide. Within this region California lead in complaints with over 50% of regional inquiries.
• The southeast ranks second regionally with 21% of nationwide coverage inquiries, where 33% of regional inquiries came from Florida.
• 17% of inquiries come from the Northeast, where New York State stands out with the highest in the region at 36%.
• The mid-Atlantic region is the source of 14% of indoor coverage inquiries for Spotwave, with Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania rounding out the highest averages for the region.
• While the southwest appears to have relatively smaller number of inquiries nationwide, at 13%, Texas stands out as the single biggest source of complaints on coverage for the region at over 74%.
• A similar pattern in seen in the North Central region which was the source of only 11% of inquiries from the country as a whole, but where Illinois originated the majority for the region at 67%.

Spotwave's findings above are based on statistics compiled from over 7,000 inquiries to the Spotwave website and toll-free number over a period of 3 months starting May 15, 2005.

Based on a web survey related to the incidence of indoor coverage problems at home and at work, the findings indicate that:

• At home - Almost 10% of respondents indicate that their mobile devices do not work at all indoors at home while 35% assert that is doesn't work in various spots in the home
• At work - 6% of respondents claim their wireless devices do not function at all at work, while a surprising 55% state that there are dead zones at work where they cannot use their devices
• The results of the indoor wireless coverage survey indicate that subscribers are either coverage impaired or coverage challenged for 50% of the day

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Posted to the site on 16th August 2005