Big increases in coverage are leading strong improvements in customer satisfaction for Vodafone, according to statistic collected internally by the telco.
The light is visible at the end of the tunnel for beleaguered telco Vodafone, with CEO Bill Morrow revealing a big uplift in both network speeds and customer satisfaction -- two separate factors which he believes are linked.
"Speed does two things; it makes sure you have a quick download…and you need the speed to be able to control capacity, they are inversely related. If you think about all of us jumping on at one given time and we have a 10Mbps link, then we're all going to share that 10Mbps." says Morrow.
By introducing HSPA+ technologies on to its network, Morrow says that the telco has 'doubled' its 3G speeds. During the same time, Vodafone also increased its 3G footprint by 40%, with significant increases in Sydney and Melbourne.
To back up the significance of this enhancement, the telco uses data from Speedtest.net showing that Vodafone now offers customers the same average 3G speed as competitor Telstra and speeds greater than Optus, though it doesn't reveal exactly what these average speeds are.
Morrow says there are two factors that work in Vodafone's favour in this comparison: the telco's 20MHz contiguous bands of spectrum and it's lower subscriber base.
"We haven't been that heavily loaded, because when you load [a network] up, speeds naturally come down," he explains.
Bad news for Vodafone is good news for you
Despite all of these enhancements to the network, Vodafone continues to lose customers, with no reversal in this trend expected until sometime next year. While this isn't great news for Vodafone, it is good news for its existing customers.
There are a number of factors that can impact network performance, but network capacity is one of the ket elements. A network with fewer users will always outperform a similarly constructed network packed with customers all petitioning the network for access.
Morrow refers to the company having a 'temporary advantage' over its competition, speaking about how Vodafone has a 20MHz pipe in both Sydney and Melbourne, but how the other telcos are likely to have similar infrastructure soon. However, it is the telco's shrinking customer base that offers the best value for its current subscribers, and it is possible this will change as word catches on that Vodafone's network has changed for the better.
Joseph Hanlon
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