Surprising dropped call rate in SA: survey

A new survey by Pondering Panda shows that 78% of South African cell phone users experienced dropped calls over the last month.

The survey, which polled 2,212 cell phone users in South Africa on the Mxit platform, revealed that 78% of people who made calls experienced unexpected call termination over the last month while 72% of people had dropped calls for calls received.

12% of people surveyed said that they experience dropped calls “nearly all the time”, with 59% saying it happens “only sometimes” while 29% said it only happens “every now and then”.

“The results indicated that the level of dropped calls was similar across all four major cell phone networks,” Pondering Panda said in a press statement.

When a call is dropped, 31% of polled Mxit members said that they call back, with 10% sending an SMS, 13% sending a “please call me”, 11% waiting for the person to call back, and 6% using Mxit to send a message to the person.

The majority of surveyed Mxit users were aged between 15 and 34 (89%). The gender breakdown was 69% female and 31% male, while the household income of 60% of users was below R10,000 per month.

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