Consumers Have Difficulties With In-home Wi-Fi Connectivity, Arris Reports

Nearly 75 percent of global consumers surveyed favor downloading over streaming when planning to watch content remotely, Arris said in its 2015 Consumer Entertainment Index released Wednesday. Arris interviewed 19,000 individuals from 19 countries -- 1,000 from each nation. The research found that almost 60 percent of consumers watch TV on mobile devices, up 6 percent from 2014, and traditional broadcast TV leads over-the-top (OTT) TV services in global popularity by 3 percent in 2015. In the U.S. and Canada, broadcast TV popularity dropped one percentage point from 2014 and OTT popularity fell two percentage points from the year prior, with broadcast still leading OTT in both countries by 6 percent, the report said. Arris also found that 63 percent of respondents worldwide reported issues with Wi-Fi connectivity in the home, and 78 percent consider having high-speed Internet connection in rooms used to watch TV either "vital" or "very important." U.S. consumers surveyed reported an average of 7.2 Wi-Fi-connected devices in the home, compared with the global average of 6, and 53 percent of surveyed Americans said they encountered Wi-Fi connectivity issues at least occasionally at home.