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Tag: data usage

  • Study: IPhone Users Hog All the Data

    The Huffington Post is reporting a study that finds iPhone users comprise 80 percent of the top 10% of data users.

    The report comes from consulting firm Analysys Mason, who revealed that among the smartphone users that fall in the 70th percentile for data use, three times as many of them are iPhones than HTC, which is the second biggest data consumer. So for top data users, iPhone beats out the next top competitor three to one.

    The data was collected by tracking smartphone of over 1,000 users over a three month period. Users were taken from all over the world, including the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Spain and France. They were able to track the data using a monitoring app devised by research company Arbitron Mobile.

    The reason for the excessive data use may be SIri. Studies have shown that iPhone 4S uses twice as much data as the iPhone 4, Siri being the primary source in these cases.

    According to the Huffington Post, AT&T Cheif Executive Randall Stephen has stated that he regrets ever offering an unlimited data plan for the iPhone. This led to monthly data caps being introduced in March.

    Other service providers have introduced similar cuts. Verizon no longer offers its $30-per-month unlimited data plan for upgrade. Prepay provider Cricket is capping its monthly data plan at 2.3GB. They will be offering the iPhone line next month.

    Way to ruin everything, Apple.

  • Wi-Fi Is Primary Data Connection For Smartphones

    A device-based study by Mobidia reveals wi-fi traffic is higher than cellular by a rate of two-to-one. The study is based on worldwide findings for smartphone users. Interestingly, wi-fi accounted for 70% of smartphone-originated traffic. Looking at the global market, over 90% of smartphone users utilize wi-fi for data usage reasons. The results of the study are a revaluation for industry leaders in smartphone technology.

    Chris Hill, Vice President of Marketing at Mobidia, comments on the exciting results of the survey:

    “We were quite surprised with the findings,”

    “Not only did we find that data usage on smartphones was much higher than the typical 100-500 megabytes average monthly usage that is often cited, but we also found that Wi-Fi usage often outpaced mobile usage by as much as six-to-one in some countries.”

    It is interesting, but I don’t know if it comes as a surprise to me. It seems almost everybody has a mobile device on them now days and staying connected throughout the day is more important than ever. It makes a lot of sense that the wi-fi networks would be taking on more and more traffic. I think we can expect to see this trend grow, especially in markets where traditional hard-wired networks and home pc’s are not common.

    Thomas Wehmeier, Informa principal analyst comments on the findings of the study:

    “Building small-screen access revenues into a $100 billion annual market is already a considerable achievement, but today’s mobile data market is arguably still in the early stages of development,”

    “Indeed, mobile data pricing models prevalent in the market today lag years behind the advanced segmentation seen in the mobile voice market. Fulfilling the industry’s future growth potential by driving smartphone and data adoption into today’s untapped customer segments will require operators to build an in-depth understanding of all aspects of customer behavior in order to deploy sustainable and profitable pricing models. And Mobidia’s solution can provide the information to help enlighten that understanding.”

    So it is clear thet analyzing data usage simply based on cellular data can be grossly inaccurate, and that wi-fi is accounting for more traffic than was expected, but like I said, it’s probably not a surprise for most readers. I wish that wi-fi was available everywhere, but we haven’t even gotten to the point where major cities have it everywhere yet. It would be nice if we didn’t have to rely on hard-wired networks for personal use at all.

    The full research report on this study is titled, “Understanding today’s smartphone user: Demystifying data usage trends on cellular & Wi-Fi networks”, and is available from Mobidia Technology, Inc.

  • AT&T Posts Super Bowl Stats Of Users At The Game

    AT&T Posts Super Bowl Stats Of Users At The Game

    There’s been a lot of stats on the Super Bowl already in terms of social media use and other technologies. AT&T offers a different take on the big game.

    In a blog post, John Donovan, AT&T’s VP, laid out some statistics of how much data their users transmitted, how many phone calls they made and how many texts were sent from those at the game.

    Surprisingly, their customers uploaded more data than they downloaded – nearly 40 percent more in fact. They were posting videos and sending pictures over text.

    Total data usage in the Lucas Oil Stadium was 215 GB which is the highest ever recorded for a single sporting event.

    Their customers made 75,204 calls from the game and sent 722,296 texts.

    The company took this opportunity to point out the improvements they made to the area around Indianapolis in anticipation of the big game. They launched Wi-Fi Hot Zone with 15 access points, installed an expanded Distributed Antenna System at the stadium and a number of other venues, added capacity to nearly 200 cell sites throughout the area and deployed nine Cells on Wheels.

    They also had a command center with street teams that helped fans on the streets before, during and after the game.

    Here’s a video explaining the work AT&T did to outfit the city with a new wireless network:

  • Are You Getting Throttled By Your Cellular Carrier?

    Are You Getting Throttled By Your Cellular Carrier?

    If you’re in the top five percent of data users on your cellular providers network than the following news about throttling may be of interest to you. Carriers like AT&T and others are apparently implementing measures to limit data usage for their top 5% of data consumers (especially after customers reach the 1 GB/month mark).

    The following video by AppAdvice illustrates how data speeds are being adjusted after heavy data use:

    Throttled devices upload speeds are similar or unaffected however; download speeds are slowed considerably. The above side-by-side comparison video indicates 2 MB/sec. on a non-throttled device versus .2 MB/sec. on a throttled device. In some cases this renders a device practically useless for downloading.

  • Nielsen Study: Teen Mobile Data Usage Up Over 250%

    Nielsen has released the results of a study into mobile phone usage by various age groups. While the study shows a rise in data usage across the board, the greatest increase was in the 13-17 age group. In the third quarter of 2010, teens in this group used an average of 90 MB of data per month. In this year’s third quarter they used a whopping 320 MB of data, a rise of 256%. While the increase was most dramatic among teens, every age group showed an increase. The next greatest increase was 147% in the 18-24 age bracket. Only one group – the 45-54 age bracket – showed an increase of less than 100%.

    Data usage across age groups

    The use of text messaging is highest among teens – particularly female teens – as well. Teens sent an average of 3,417 SMS/MMS messages per month in the third quarter of this year, with girls sending an average of nearly 200 more messages than boys.

    Messaging across age groups

    Interestingly, voice usage is actually down among teens, who say they find messaging faster, easier, and more fun that voice calling. The study shows they used an average of just over 100 fewer minutes this year than in the same period last year.

    These results are part of Nielsen’s broader State of the Media: The Mobile Media Report Q3 2011 (PDF). Another part of the study focused on smartphone ownership and app usage across various age groups. They found that the majority of people in the 18-24 (53%) and 24-34 (64%) age groups owned smartphones. Meanwhile 40% of the 13-17 age group owned smartphones, a number which surely contributed to the dramatic increase in data usage in the same age bracket. The study also found and that 62% of smartphone owners had downloaded apps within the past 30 days.