Telstra. That according to Aussie consumers who gave thumbs up to the blue telco for best quality mobile voice calls, mobile Internet and texting, giving it 5 out of 5.
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This was followed by Virgin Mobile and Optus who ranked an average ‘3’, while troubled Vodafone ranked a miserable ‘2’ for network performance, hardly a surprise.
The Australian Wireless Network Quality Study, conducted by US researchers JD Power out today, quizzed 1,900 telco customers experiences with voice calls, messages, email and the mobile internet across all states.
Telco users rated Telstra as the highest for voice calls (fewer dropped calls and connected first go), texts (fewer failures) and Internet performance (fewer errors and less slow loading).
Virgin Mobile, ranked as second best after Telstra, which runs off Optus’ network was also rated particularly high for call performance by consumers.
But the big shock finding is those of us with swanky smartphone like iPhone 4 or Samsung Galaxy S II “continue to experience more problems” with calls than do those with basic mobiles – on all networks, the report also revealed.
Web, email connection errors and excessively slow downloads are common issues with mobile internet, while dropped calls, initial disconnect and audio issues are common on the calls front.
Australian networks mirror those in the US, although Aussie networks suffer more “excessively slow downloads” than their U.S. counterparts, overall.
“Like the U.S. market, Australian wireless customers experience varying degrees of consistency with their overall network quality,” said Kirk Parsons, senior director of wireless, J.D. Power and Associates.
Mobile users rely on their phones to do everything, from providing them with driving directions to sending picture messages, downloading apps and placing calls, Parsons said.
On average, we make make/receive 15 calls, 17 texts over 48 hours, the report found – identical to that in the United States.
It’s “imperative” that service providers continue to invest in improving their networks, to increase capacity, as data-related issues like slow downloads greatly impact future switching, he warned.
Customers who selected their current carrier to obtain better network coverage, are spending and average of $16 higher than other network, the study shows.
Telstra is known for being slightly pricier than competitors but its network is known for being more reliable.
Telstra now has more than 300,000 customers using its super fast 4G network for smartphones, tablets and mobile broadband devices and has just switched on its 1000th 4G LTE base station.
“In the last 12 months alone we upgraded more than 5,000 mobile base stations and became the first telco to offer ultra-fast 4G LTE connectivity to Australians – switching on our 1000th 4G LTE base station in Mackay Queensland just last week,” said Warwick Bray, Executive Director, Telstra Mobile.
“Appetite for fast, reliable connectivity has never been so great.”
