What is the role of phone manufacturers in ensuring mobile coverage?

Most people believe that good mobile coverage is simply a function of the network and is the sole responsibility of the mobile operator. However, new research shows that the quality of mobile coverage is largely dependent on the type of phones customers buy and how they use them. Should phone manufacturers be held responsible?

Professor Gert Frølund Pedersen of Aalborg University is the author of his study, “Limit values for Downlink Mobile Telephony in Denmark,” published in 2012. Pedersen’s painstaking study focused on how nine of the most popular phones perform when it comes to coverage. The results demonstrate definitively that the quality of the phone itself, most especially the phone’s antenna, plays a major role in the user’s experience of the network. One of the key findings of the study was that standards matter. To improve chances of good coverage, users should choose phones that are optimized for the network standards of their carriers. However, this can be a challenge as many handset manufacturers do not allow operators to publish data about which phones are optimal for their network, and handset manufacturers themselves are not required to disclose which network frequencies are optimal for their phones.

[Jan 2]