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Average Cellphone Data Usage Is 145.8 MB Per Month

Posted by Soulskill on from the mostly-to-imdb-and-wikipedia-during-arguments dept.

destinyland writes "For the first time, the majority of cell phones are accessing data services — 53 percent, compared to only 42 percent last year, according to a new study by Validas. And each user downloads an average of 145.8 MB per month (the average was just 96.8 MB per month in 2009). The heaviest users are Verizon smartphone owners, averaging 428 MB per month (338 MB on average for iPhone users). In fact, Verizon users were twice as likely as iPhone users to exceed both 500 MB and 2 GB each month."

10 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. Standard deviation by Again · · Score: 3, Informative

    I clicked on the article and couldn't find any mention of standard deviation. Knowing the standard deviation would make statistics like this far more interesting and meaningful.

    1. Re:Standard deviation by compro01 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Presumably they're withholding that information in the actual study which will be released in September.

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      upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
    2. Re:Standard deviation by julesh · · Score: 3, Informative

      I clicked on the article and couldn't find any mention of standard deviation. Knowing the standard deviation would make statistics like this far more interesting and meaningful.

      Knowing the distribution might be more helpful. I would intuitively expect this to be exponentially distributed, at which point knowing the standard deviation is actually pointless (one would expect it to approximately equal the mean).

  2. Just over-the-air data counted... by samkass · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This survey only covers billed 2G/3G data. As an iPhone owner, I know the data I user per month on AT&T networks has declined recently as AT&T wi-fi hotspots seem to be proliferating everywhere. From Panera to McDonalds, it seems like most lunch spots have free wi-fi, and my home and work certainly does. I don't know how good Verizon's phones are at dealing with wi-fi, or whether they include 802.11b/g/n like the iPhone. In addition, as apps are often more efficient than sites at communicating over the network, some of the reduction is almost certainly due to "there's an app for that" reduction.

    In short, I really don't think the MB/month over 2G/3G is necessarily indicative of how much internet is used on a phone anymore.

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    E pluribus unum
    1. Re:Just over-the-air data counted... by adolf · · Score: 3, Informative

      Good point! As an iphone user, I often use wifi and AT&T does have a great wifi network. The iphone connects automatically to AT&t wifi networks so it's transparent to to user! AT&T wifi is "free" for iphone users! I think that need to be counted in the data usage, as it is part of the data plan.

      (quotations added)

      Hey, guess what!

      My Motorola Droid also talks to AT&T hotspots*! Should we also include my AT&T Wifi data usage, even though I don't have an iPhone or AT&T phone service?

      Of course not! It's cellular data usage that is being discussed, not overall data usage!

      *: As a Uverse customer, I get "free" access to AT&T's Wifi network when I'm out and about.

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      Kid-proof tablet..
  3. so little? by simp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's on average less then 5MB per day. If I read a few 400 comment threads on slashdot or fark I already have to download that much html. What are these people doing with their phones?

    1. Re:so little? by somaTh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Talking?

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      Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
    2. Re:so little? by MoonBuggy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      On the other hand, though, I'm continually surprised at just how heavy the average web page seems to be. My phone has a little bandwidth ticker in the corner, and often the front pages for company sites, or the pages for single newspaper articles come in at over 1MB. Switching off images seems to be a thing of the past, so I'd think most users are getting hit with that full page weight.

    3. Re:so little? by DriedClexler · · Score: 4, Funny

      Wait, smartphones support voicechat now???

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      Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
  4. Statistics fail. by kurokame · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is not useful data. The average data usage per month for all cell phone users includes (from the article) the 47% of all cell phone users who are not data users at all. This is like trying to find the average upload & download per month for broadband users by finding out the total bandwidth used by broadband subscribers then dividing it by the entire population of Earth.

    Now that we've established your level of mathematical competency, could I interest you in a few lottery tickets?