A new Zogby poll taken for the Skype VoIP company concludes that two out of three Americans (67.3 percent) think consumers should decide which applications they can use on a mobile device. In contrast, a mere 8.7 percent say the question should be left up to wireless providers. And 59 percent of those queried agreed that said companies have "too much power over how consumers can use their handsets."
"The findings are clear," crowed Brian O'Shaughnessy, Skype's Head of Global Communications, in his latest blog post. "Most consumers favor greater choice, flexibility and control over managing their personal mobile communications, and a majority support the FCC's efforts to put more control in their hands." The survey also found that almost two-thirds of the respondents approve of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) launching a Notice of Inquiry on the state of wireless competition.
Skype is famously peeved that iPhone consumers can't use Skype's service to tap into the AT&T 3G network, although they can use it via WiFi.
More likely to pay
Some of the survey responses, though, can be read as less than a unanimous public outcry for what Skype wants. 54 percent of those polled agreed that Internet software which allows them to make free calls "increases the value of a mobile phone service." And just half concurred that "they would be more likely to pay for a wireless service that allows them to use software applications like Skype to make unlimited free calls anywhere in the world." Obviously, we've got a glass half empty/half full interpretive situation here.
Still, if you compare these results to a somewhat similar Zogby survey released in March, you get a sense of how rapidly public opinion and behavior is changing. That earlier poll queried 3,000 mobile consumers in four countries—the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Spain. 70 percent reported that they had never downloaded an application to their mobile device. Relatively few said that they enjoyed the same level of control over their mobiles that they enjoy over their computer.
This latest Skype/Zogby survey probably reflects rising consumer expectations as more mobile users take advantage of the downloadable apps available on their handsets, and as smartphones feel more like portable computers.
O'Shaughnessy writes that public opinion is at a "tipping point" on this issue, one where the "momentum for change" has become "unstoppable."
Poster children
But the wireless industry thinks we're at a tipping point, too, albeit one of a very different kind. Yesterday, CTIA - The Wireless Association filed comments with the FCC arguing that the Commission no longer needs to search for a "third pipe" to supplement the dominant broadband venues, copper wire and cable.
"Commercial wireless is providing a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and sometimes tenth broadband pipe to the person," the trade association argued. And today CTIA sent us the executive summary of a new report contending that "by any measure, the mobile wireless ecosystem is the poster child for competition"—those metrics including the number of competitors in various key markets and the diversity of data plans and offerings. Their view is that things are competitive enough that government intervention isn't necessary.
So you can expect the Skypes and the CTIAs to very energetically talk past each other over the coming months, publishing polls and studies while the FCC continues to marinate in workshops, inquiries, proceedings, reports, and public hearings on the state of broadband. It all culminates in the National Broadband Plan that the agency must deliver to Congress in February 2010, the size of which may require the development of a new, crash proof PDF reader.
That Skype/Zogby poll, by the way, surveyed 2,016 U.S. adults, ages 18 and older, from September 15-17, 2009. A slightly scary footnote from the report: 2.7 percent of the respondents said they wanted "the federal government" to decide which software applications "should be allowed to run on a mobile handset" (!).
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