For years I had a Vodafone mobile service. For one reason only: the $5 per day international roaming charge. The best deal by far. About a year ago my usage patterns changed considerably. COVID-19 travel restrictions curtailed internal travel and I started doing more bushwalking. Once outside the city my mobile coverage was noticeably inferior to those of my companions on Telstra. So I switched.
I was not alone. Coverage seems to be a significant driver of churn, according to Opensignal, which has analysed the mobile experience of an unspecified number of users before and after churning. It found the service experience of two thirds of those changing providers was worse than that of typical users on those networks.
I definitely got better mobile coverage in rural areas on Telstra than on Vodafone, but it seems the hopes of most of those switching networks in the hope of better service were not fulfilled.
Opensignal analysed the mobile experience of leavers for the first 30 days with their new mobile network provider and compared this to the last 30 days with their original network provider. Its conclusion: “many saw just small improvements in their experience or none at all.” The exception was Vodafone leavers who “enjoyed improved 4G availability after switching.”
No gain from churning
Opensignal observed no significant differences across any of the three operators in the proportion of time leavers spent with no signal or their 3G/4G availability before and after they switched their mobile network operator. It suggested the main driver for Telstra customers churning was “relative price, handset choice, or marketing execution.”
Opensignal suggests mobile operators offering a good mobile network experience need to improve their marketing to communicate the value of a high quality experience to increase mobile subscriber retention, and should “focus network investments on reducing the gap between users with the worst and best mobile experience.”
The first of those suggestions seems somewhat redundant. Depending on what users want to do on their phone, whether it’s simply getting voice coverage, a decent internet connection for data, or stream video, they will soon realise any shortcomings in network performance if it impacts those services.
Carefully targeted network investments would certainly improve performance, but like all investment decisions are made on an RoI basis. For several years I lived in Stanmore, a suburb of Western Sydney a mere 7.5km from the Sydney Opera House. Mobile coverage in my unit was so bad I advertised, and used, a fixed network number on Skype. And any time I received an incoming mobile call I would dash down the stairs and into the street hoping to get coverage before the call dropped out.
At one time or another I tried all three networks. The situation persisted for the seven years I lived there. They were all much the same Presumably it was such a small black spot that it did not justify investment in better coverage.
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