Restaurants and gyms: the case for connectivity

Paul Carter founded GWS back in 1996 and, four years later, it began nationwide mobile network benchmark testing in the US. Roughly 12 million miles of drive- and walk-testing later and it is still playing a key role in the mobile industry ecosystem, having in recent years expanded its network benchmarking portfolio to cover large events and introduced a metric to assess mobile networks based on business users’ requirements.

He says that in addition to recently testing the wireless connectivity of 30 gyms in London – inspired by the number of gym-goers who take selfies as part of their workout routine – GWS has also tested 50 of the capital’s most ‘Instagrammable’ restaurants. For these studies, the company also commissioned surveys from OnePoll to get a feel for consumers’ attitudes with regards to connectivity in both settings.

One thing about the results that Carter has been surprised by is that, while it is clear just by the way most people are on their smartphones when waiting for a train that “our devices are important to us, people are now describing their experience as being ruined if they don’t have the mobile phone experience they’re looking for to do basic things, to check their emails or to surf the internet or to share photos”.