European mobile subscribers rank improved network quality as the service for which they would be happiest to pay a premium and view more widespread connectivity as the most important industry development over the next decade, according to new research from Amdocs.

The OSS/BSS solutions provider surveyed 2,500 consumers across five European markets—France, Germany, Russia, Sweden and the UK—in a bid to uncover the kind of services they want and would be willing to pay for. The results appear to reveal a sophisticated understanding of the potential of mobile technology among European consumers, and a readiness to divert more of their income towards mobile services if the quality of those services is high enough.

Some 90 per cent of Russian subscribers surveyed said they would be willing to pay higher premiums to receive the products and services they want. More than half of those surveyed in both Russia and Germany identified connectivity and synchronisation between all devices would turn out to be the most important development in the next ten years, while more than 70 per cent of British users cited connection to other devices as the first or second most influential factor in increasing their mobile consumption.

"Our findings reveal that customers are eager to transition to the next level, where their mobile device will become an integral part of daily life fully linked with their computers, cars, household devices and finances for seamless control of all aspects of the modern world," said Rotem Katzir, regional marketing director at Amdocs.

Despite enthusiasm for the evolution of mobile services, the survey respondents said that the most important thing to them was the performance and reliability of the mobile network. Almost half, 46 per cent, said improved quality was the most likely thing for which they would be prepared to pay a premium. Meanwhile, half of UK subscribers ranked network improvement as their most pressing concern.

Network quality wasn’t the only fundamental that was identified as in need of improvement. Customer experience is evidently lacking, with only 12 per cent of those surveyed saying their operator provided them with "very good" service. Ten per cent described the service as "bad". Almost half of those surveyed said they wanted to see a reduction in waiting times for customer care calls, and a quarter said they were frustrated by the need to repeat personal details to different call centre workers within the same call.

Posted by Veronica Silva Cusi, news correspondent
Source: http://www.telecoms.com