Published in
Mobiles
US mobile users chew through 450MB of data
In the first three months
US mobile phone users are tearing through data at an alarming rate. According to Nielsen the average US mobile subscriber used 450 MB of data per month in the first quarter.
That figure is more than double the average of 208MB per month for all US mobile subscribers in the first quarter last year. The usage statistics come from data in monthly phone bills of at least 65,000 mobile users who volunteered to participate. What is interesting is that it shows more people must be using their phones to download video material as there is little else would push that bandwidth up.
It is also worrying for many users as the cable companies are looking at more bandwidth capping, which could end users' ability to download as much as that. Meanwhile it is starting to look that tablets which have built-in mobile connectivity will decline over the next four years.
However, beancounters at CCS Insight said that most users do not regard mobile connectivity in tablets as a must-have, especially given the current price of tablets and mobile data subscriptions. In 2011, sales of tablets with mobile modems were driven mainly by supply, according to the firm, and about half of owners of mobile-enabled tablets did not activate the service with a carrier.