AT&T caused some waves recently when it simply canceled its flat fee wireless data plan and replaced with two plans that have caps, which, in some scenarios could get rather expensive for the user. Some analysts, such as Jack Gold from J. Gold Associates, have said that efficient data usage of apps may become a part of future wireless benchmarks.
However, even if those 200 MB and 2 GB caps sound tight, most of us will have to admit that we simply have no idea how much data we actually consume on our smartphones. Common sense would suggest that there are smartphones that promote data usage and there are some that are too clumsy and create a barrier for data usage. The iPhone, with more than 200,000 apps on tap and countless apps that heavily rely on data, may be among those devices that consume considerable data – which, in fact may have been a reason for AT&T to introduce those new caps just before the introduction of the iPhone 4.
But that does not answer the question how much data we actually consume, of course, and is very much speculation on our part.
Nielsen tried to give some answers by revealing some of the results it got from analyzing 60,000 phone bills. And, as you may imagine, there were some surprises.
What was expected is the fact that increased smartphone data penetration, the availability of more apps and the simple fact that we are getting more comfortable using smartphones results in more data usage. The average monthly data consumption jumped from about 90 MB in January 2009 to about 298 MB in January 2010.
However, Nielsen found that 6% of smartphone users are consuming half of all data. 25% of smartphone users consume less than 1 MB of data. Another 25% do not use any data service, despite the fact that they have signed up for such a plan and pay for it. They use their smartphone only for voice calls and messaging. Nielsen criticized the carriers for this scenario and urged them to do a much better job educating their customers.
More than a third of smartphone users do not subscribe to a data plan at this time. Nielsen said that these users got their smartphones before operators required a data plan.
All these numbers aside, it is somewhat clear that the bandwidth discussion has trickled down from the desktop to the mobile landscape. Data is the new revenue opportunity as voice is commoditized. AT&T is leading the charge, while others with substantial market share may follow soon. Other carriers that have built their business model on a monetary value proposition may have it more difficult to switch to such a model.
In that view, it is interesting to note that, at least for now, AT&T’s new tiered pricing plan may be a good value and not be as expensive as it seems. Nielsen said that 99% of cellphone subscribers are better off with the new model. That is, of course, until applications such as video calling will make it to 3G/4G networks.