Intermittent data coverage? Let IDA know with new app

Intermittent data coverage? Let IDA know with new app

SINGAPORE - Having a lousy experience surfing the internet on your smartphone due to intermittent data connection?

The Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) wants to know this, and it has launched a mobile app to gather usage experience from your smartphones.

Called MyConnection SG, the app will run in the background, and collect and send information about 2G, 3G, 4G and WiFi networks, such as data and voice performance, anonymously to IDA.

Users can also use the app to check upload and download speeds and give feedback to IDA on their mobile broadband experience in a particular location.

IDA hopes that this crowdsourcing initiative will allow it to identify areas of mobile congestion and gaps in coverage.

In a statement sent to the media on Wednesday, IDA said that MyConnection SG may be implemented as a longer-term measure to enhance information transparency and improve service quality for consumers.

Ms Jacqueline Poh, Managing Director, IDA, said: "Crowdsourcing provides us with anonymised and aggregated data to better understand the quality of consumers' mobile broadband experience all around the island.

"We hope consumers will download the MyConnection SG app and volunteer as NIMI testers to help IDA improve their broadband service experience."

NIMI (National Internet Measurement Infrastructure) is a crowdsourcing measure IDA has undertaken since 2009 to gather residential fixed broadband experience in selected households of volunteers though measurement devices.

The MyConnection SG pilot will begin today, and end on March 31, 2015. Consumers may download the app from the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store for Android users.

grongloh@sph.com.sg

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