5 things we want to see in 2016

Fiber Internet for 999. Fiber internet has been around for a couple of years but the service is either too expensive or limited to selected locations. While the area of coverage is continuously being expanded, we wish it would be more affordable to regular residential subscribers. Even a 15-20Mbps fiber connection for P999 per month would dramatically change the experience which will allow people to access better or high-quality content. It should also significantly improve our ranking in the region in terms of average internet speeds.

Gigabit Paid Public WiFi. While mobile internet has become the most common point of access for nomadic users, it would be nice to see more paid public WiFi becoming more accessible especially to heavy users. Public WiFi will help ease cellular network congestion and provide much faster bandwidth.

Malls, coffee shops, restaurants and public places are best candidates to hook up with fast gigabit internet. We’ve seen this being done by Globe in the Serendra area in BGC (we personally tested it and got around 100Mbps) on an experimental basis so we think it’s viable as long as the hourly rates are still affordable (around P30 per hour should be reasonable).

We’ve also seen this in other countries where carriers provide complimentary WiFi access to mobile data users. This encourages subscribers to switch from using 3G/LTE connections to local WiFi when in designated areas.

Smartphones with 5,000mAh batteries. As more powerful smartphones are introduced every month, the only other feature that does not seem to go along with the improvements would be the battery. As such, users tend to gravitate towards the power outlet or grab a powerbank a couple times a day.

Perhaps, if smartphone manufacturers can find a way to get higher capacity batteries into the smartphones they introduce. There have been a few who managed to do this but they’re mostly the exception rather than the norm.

Android-Windows 10 Mobile Devices. Wishing for a smartphone running both Android and Windows 10 might be over-reaching but there is a valid case use for it. Android can be the default operating system when mobile but once you want to switch to a more productive task, you can switch to Windows 10 and run Continuum so you can hook the mobile device to a monitor and attach a full-size keyboard and dedicated mouse to do some office productivity tasks (like MS Word, Excel or Powerpoint). That option would certainly convince some people to leave the heavy laptop at home.

Wider Support for USB Type-C. We’ve only used at least three mobile devices this year that uses USB Type-C (i.e. Asus ZenPad S 8.0, OnePlus 2, Huawei Nexus 6P) and during those times we’ve used them extensively, we always long for compatible accessories — extra charging cables, connector and adaptors as well as docking stations. We know USB Type-C will become more common in the future but we wish it would be sooner than later. At the very least, we want to see more third-party cables become more widely available and at a cheaper price.