Like many users of mobile devices, Arvind Jain is annoyed by how long it takes web pages to load over cellular connections. The Google Inc engineering director is continually monitoring Internet-access rates -- from hotels, offices and airport lounges around the world -- looking for ways to speed things up. Jain's mission: get websites to load over mobile- phone networks twice as quickly as they do now. Today's times are typically 9.2 seconds in the US.
The goal is part of a companywide initiative for Google, the world's biggest search-engine provider, which aims to use faster mobile Internet access to unlock billions of dollars in additional e-commerce and online advertising. When people are waiting for pages to load, they aren't shopping or viewing ads. That's hampering everyone from giant Internet companies to local businesses trying to reach customers.
"There's a clear correlation between speed and the success of your online business," Jain said.
What makes a mobile Web connection slow? In some cases, it's the carriers' network -- say, if users can't get 3G or 4G service on their phones. Often, though, it's because the Web page wasn't designed to load quickly on a wireless device. The site may have high-resolution pictures or data-intensive effects. Beyond that, Internet protocols and software aren't always optimized for mobile connections, which can lose some of the data they transmit.
Website abandonment
An especially long delay can cause consumers to give up on purchases altogether, and the risk is more acute on mobile phones than with desktop computers. Twice as many mobile-phone users abandon a website for reasons such as sluggishness than their desktop counterparts, according toForrester Research Inc. That results in lost revenue for online sellers, as well as companies like Google, the U.S. leader in mobile advertising.
To fix the problem, Google is tweaking its mobile browser and working with other companies on changing the way basic Internet technologies work. It's also rolling out tools that help website owners see the connection between their sites' performance and sales. That can prod businesses to spend the money needed to speed up their services.
Faster mobile Web loads could increase mobile-commerce sales in the US by 10 per cent, or about $600 million a year, said Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester. They also could help online commerce in general: Almost half of mobile users are unlikely to return to a website at all if they had trouble accessing it from their phone, a 2011 study by Equation Research found.
Hurting business
"There's a big business impact to these kind of struggles," said Geoff Galat, vice president of worldwide marketing at Tealeaf Technology Inc, a provider of website- improvement software.
Faster mobile Web speeds also translate into additional mobile-ad revenue. A 30 per cent improvement in mobile Internet's speed could lead to a 15 per cent rise in ad sales, said Trevor Healy, chief executive officer of mobile-ad provider Amobee Inc. US mobile-advertising spending will reach $2.61 billion this year, up from $1.45 billion in 2011, according to EMarketer Inc.
While carriers adopting 4G networks have helped speed up the mobile Internet, those upgrades won't have the biggest impact on performance, said Craig Mathias, founder of consulting firm Farpoint Group in Ashland, Massachusetts. Improvements to servers, browsers and other Internet software are even more important, he said.
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