One in 10 people worldwide would switch to a mobile carrier that blocks ads
Survey also finds that more than a quarter of ad-blocker users would stop visiting sites which require them to disable the software
More than one in 10 people say they would switch to a mobile carrier that blocks advertising across its network, according to a study from media and technology research company Midia.
Midia surveyed 3,000 people in the US, Brazil, Australia, France, Sweden, and the UK about their digital content habits as part of its "Decoding The Adblocking Consumer" report.
Overall, 11 per cent of consumers said they would switch to a mobile carrier that blocks ads across its network. That rose to 15 per cent among people who already use some form of desktop ad blocker and to 19 per cent amongst mobile ad blocker users.
Of course, this is just a single survey and the question itself may have been the first time its participants had ever considered whether they could switch to a mobile carrier that would block ads. While there's no indication that consumers are yet changing carrier purely based on whether they offer ad blocking, the survey suggests it is at least an option some consumers would consider.
A number of mobile carriers are currently exploring whether to deploy network-level ad blocking, which would see technology installed in their data centers to prevent most ads across the mobile web and within apps being served.
Caribbean-based carrier, Digicel, was the first to roll out network-level ad blocking. Three, in the UK and Italy, is steadily moving forward with its ad blocking plans. Meanwhile, UK carrier O2 has said it was exploring technologies that could be used to block ads across its network.
From a carrier's point of view, ads can account for much of the data transfer of a web page — and their networks are doing the heavy lifting.