Smartphone users claim more service issues than feature phone users

The Pew Research Center conducted a survey on the usage of mobile phones in the United States, detailing problems encountered in daily use focusing on dropped calls, unwanted calls, spam and download problems. Satisfaction is the key word when using any phone, be it a smartphone or otherwise, and the results of this survey show that smartphone users experience more disruptions that could lead to a drop in satisfaction.

According to the survey, 88 percent of U.S. adults own a mobile phone, of which 72 percent seldom experience dropped calls, while 32 percent of them face a recurrent drop in calls minimally a few times a week.

Unwanted marketing or sales calls are experienced by 68 percent of mobile phone owners receiving one at some point, per the survey; furthermore the problem is pointed out by 25 percent of owners who receive such calls at a minimum of a few times a week. When it comes to texting the survey claims that 79 percent of phone owners use texts. Texting spam or unwanted texts are received by 69 percent of mobile phone owners, while 25 percent of them are faced with the problem on a weekly basis at the minimum.

How about Internet connectivity speeds? According to the survey, 55 percent of owners claim to use their phone to go online. That is, they use their phone to browse the Web, send/receive mails, or download applications. In the process of using the Internet on their mobile phones, 77 percent of mobile phone Internet users have experienced a slower than desired download speed, while 46 percent of the users are faced with slow download speeds on weekly basis at the minimum.

28 percent of feature phone owners experience dropped calls at least on a weekly basis, but a higher 35 percent of smartphone owners are faced with the same problem, 25 percent more to be exact. 49 percent of smartphone owners experience slow download speeds at least weekly, compared to 31 percent of feature phone owners, which is 36.73 percent less than smartphone users, a significantly higher number.

Unwanted sales and marketing calls are received by 26 percent of smartphone owners, while only 23 percent of feature phone owners report it as at least a weekly occurrence, 11.53 percent less. Unwanted texts and spam are received by 20 percent of feature phone users, while 29 percent of smartphone owners are faced with the problem on a minimum weekly basis a significant 45 percent higher.

According to the survey, smartphone users face the exact same problems as non-smartphone users, but as a whole, they report more of them. The data from the survey is based on interviews conducted from March 15 to April 3, 2012 by the Princeton Survey Research Associates International on a sample of 2,254 adults, 18 years of age or older and when comparing 2,254 adults with the entire adult population of the United States there are significant differences, so this survey must be tread carefully because the sample is not significant among U.S. adults.

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