It’s a long time since the days of WAP websites that provided ultra small, text based versions of popular sites for people to access on their small and often monochromatic phone screens running at speeds slower than even a dial-up connection.
These days having access to the full online experience on our phones is commonplace, and for Smartphone users it’s an absolute part of the package to have internet access whenever it’s needed. However, mobile broadband technology is far from perfect right now and many providers find themselves stretched to capacity.
New technology is on the horizon, but until then it’s a common trend to see big companies like O2 and Vodaphone replacing their previously ‘unlimited’ Smartphone data plans with something a bit more conservative. In fact on cheaper contracts smartphone users might see their data plan be capped at something as low as 500MB a month.
Now, few people plan on using their Smartphone to actively download files – and when they do most will make sure they are on Wi-Fi if for no other reason that the actual speed – so some might assume that 500MB would be more than enough to handle even heavy web browsing providing you stay away from YouTube and didn’t download too much from app stores.
However, Smart Mouth Media have surveyed common UK retail sites to see just how much UK sites can take up just from a visit, the and the results are pretty shocking. Some sites, like ScrewFix, take up a massive 2.6MB to view, while the average was still a very high 908KB. Of all the major retailers only Marks and Spencers had a mobile only website which totalled only 38kb, over fifty times smaller than ScrewFix.
Website users should be taking onboard this bandwidth limit for Smartphones, especially as Google is very interested in seeing sites reducing their loading times and their bandwidth, and algorithms could lend more emphasis to this in the future, affecting overall rankings.
It’s not always financially possible to create an entirely new webpage just for mobile users, but just being aware that in the future bandwidth may become a consideration could help you minimise problems with the size of your site and make the overall browsing experience better for all users, not just those who have purchased the latest iPhone.
Related posts:
- Are Social Networks Becoming More Important Than Search Engines? In the UK, figures are beginning to indicate that more people log on to check out their social network sites than they do to search...
- Microsoft accused of theft by Asian community site ‘Plurk’ An Asian blogging website called Plurk has accused Microsoft’s new Chinese social networking website of ripping them off – everything from parts of their code...
