New research conducted by Pew Internet and American Life Project has found out that, three-fourths of handheld users experience dropped calls and nine of the ten U.S. adults possess a handheld.
The report said that about 70 percent handheld users in U.S. get unwanted sales or marketing calls or text messages on their phones , it happens once a week for a quarter of them despite such practices being restricted by federal and state laws.
The report stated that among 10 people accessing Internet, from their handhelds, experience slow download speeds on occasions and half experience this problem once a week.
Pew found that people who experience these problems are basically smartphone users. About half of handhelds used in U.S are smartphones. Of the smartphone users, 35 percent experience dropped calls (weekly) in comparsion to 28 percent of feature phone owners. And about 30 percent of smartphone users receive spam when compared with 21 percent of feature phone users.
Nowadays, many feature phones also come with Web browsers, e-mail service and other Internet-enabled features. Just 31 percent of people with feature phones have reported slow download speeds when compared with 49 percent of smartphone users experiencing it.
The report did not go into the details of poor audio quality voice call. But a handheld user who grew listening or talking on landlines tells us the calls from landlines are much better in terms of quality.
It will be interesting to see if he release of 4G wireless carrier networks will lessen this problem.