Can you remember your first mobile web experience?
That is, the first time you tried to launch a browser on a mobile device? As you stared at a blank screen, and watched a progress bar slowly tick its way forward, only to be stopped about halfway across, your impression was probably something like this:
“This is it? Really? … This is slow!”
Things have changed a lot since then.
While mobile devices still lag behind their desktop counterparts, they are certainly useful for some limited web browsing. And when connected to a Wi-Fi router, many devices operate at speeds that are totally satisfying.
If your mobile browsing experiences have been getting better and better, we’re happy to confirm that, no, you weren’t imagining things. The mobile web is actually about 30% faster than it was last year, according to a recent report from Google.
More specifically, mobile page load times are 30% faster. About a third of pages load in 1-3 seconds, and about another third load in 3-7 seconds. That is, almost three-quarters of mobile web page openings were fully loaded in less than 7 seconds.
We know, we know. “7 seconds!? Who has that kind of time!?” Relax. The industry players are working on solutions from a number of angles. In fact, Google, identifies at least four areas of improvement that are contributing to the speed increases:
1. Core telecom infrastructure improvements,
2. Faster browsers,
3. Increased LTE/4G deployments for mobile networks, and
4. Mobile device processing power improvements
So the mobile web is significantly faster, compared to just last year, and is light-years ahead of where we were beyond that. In addition, the improvements have come to many countries around the world, not just the U.S., so many hotspots around the globe are speeding up.
Soon enough, all of our mobile devices will support web browsing that is too fast to complain about.