Open access not as important to wireless consumers as QoS, pricing, survey finds

While many carriers have been moving toward opening up their networks over the past year, a new survey shows that open-access networks aren't nearly as important to consumers as device prices or service quality.

According to the survey, which was conducted by Boston-based Web analytics firm Compete, Inc., a full 93% of respondents said that getting a phone at a reasonable price was either important or very important to them, while 90% of respondents said the same thing about customer service. The open access-related requirements, in contrast, were lower on respondents’ priorities. Overall, 65% of respondents said the ability to switch carriers without having to switch their phone was either important or very important, while 56% said the same about being able to access any content or applications they chose on their mobile phone.

Additionally, 45% of respondents said that they thought there were too many different options for handsets, while only 9% said there weren’t enough. Roughly 60% of respondents, meanwhile, said that their carrier offered them an appropriate amount of content and services to meet their needs, while 30% said their carrier offered them too many and only 11% said their carrier offered them too little. Adam Guy, Compete’s general manager of telecommunications and media and a former analyst for the Yankee Group, says that the survey shows that open networks aren’t a top priority for consumers and that carriers would have to keep focused on pricing and customer service as they moved toward opening up.

“With the iPhone launch in 2007, we saw the wireless industry make an initial move away from its legacy of carrier-controlled devices and services,” says Guy. “With carriers beginning to embrace open access, they will be able to focus on marketing their products and services to the masses while outsourcing niche device and content development to third parties.”

Although major carriers have in the past been reluctant to open up their networks, the last year has seen a dramatic swing in the opposite direction. From the FCC’s decision to impose open-access rules on a valuable chunk of the 700-MHz spectrum, to Google’s release of the Linux-based Android open-source mobile platform, to Verizon’s announcement that it would give its customers an open-access service option, several events have coincided to make the push for more open networks a reality.

While Guy says that he thinks the push toward open networks is good for the telecom market, he notes that in the past carriers have had legitimate reasons for opposing open-access requirements.

“It’s a mistake to look at open networks solely as good and closed networks as evil,” he says. “Openness has certain amount of risk to it as far as quality of service is concerned.”