Woes, Workarounds, and Wishes of Users Living in a Multinetwork Reality

Despite efforts towards pervasive, high-speed broadband connectivity, users worldwide continue to experience a persistent multinetwork reality–a reality of intermittent Internet access over multiple networks of varying capacities across space and time. In this late-breaking work, we investigate the challenges users face while using different Internet-based services and the mitigating strategies they adopt to overcome those challenges in a multinetwork reality. In addition, we also investigate how users envision software-based interventions that might augment their existing strategies and help them better manage their activities in a multinetwork reality. Finally, based on our findings from a qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews, we explore a two-dimensional design space defined by cognitive and resource costs and discuss directions for future work.