Verizon Wireless customers top the charts in smartphone data usage

By on Jul 27, 2010 at 5:00 PM
General July 27, 2010

Wireless billing vendor Validas analyzed the billing records of 20,000 wireless customers from January to May 2010 and discovered that Verizon Wireless customers top the charts in smartphone data usage. According to the compiled data, Verizon Wireless smartphone users consume 421MB per month, a figure that surprisingly tops iPhone users on AT&T who consume an average of 338MB of data per month. Despite the popularity of the iPhone — and its perception as a data-hungry device — Verizon Wireless also saw the largest increase in data usage per user, jumping from 48.2MB to 147.2MB per month. Verizon Wireless customers also topped AT&T amongst heavy data users with 4% of customers using 2GB or more per month as compared to 1.6% on AT&T. Not surprisingly, only 1/5th of 1% of Verizon and AT&T customers consumed more than 5GB per month, presumably due to usage caps imposed on some data plans. Wonder how those tiered data plans already in effect on AT&T (and rumored to be coming to VZW) will effect these numbers in the second half of the year? 

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  • fadi

    @Biggles,
    first of all sorry about any miss spelling or any grammar mistakes.
    is AT&T bashing becoming the new cool thing to do for some trolls???? I understand and believe that AT&T needs to work on their network and they are and it is showing in a big way.
    this article is talking about averages and if you read the source it will explain what’s wrong with averages. another thing, according to the latest statement and report of both companies, att have %53 smart phone users vs. %35  on Verizon. so even though the misleading average shows more usage, that doesn’t translate to more traffic on Verizon’s network due to the fact that there are less smart phones on their network. and please don’t talk about the old article about Verizon then Sprint and last is AT&T data usage because you can go back to that article and read the source and learn exactly what they are comparing and…. ok I am tired from writing this post and I know people will troll no matter what and that’s one of the reasons why I stopped posting but I just couldn’t resist this time 

     

    • Topher86

      So, essentially, you’re saying while Vzw customers use more data, there are more at&t customers using data simultaneously?

    • Edward Devine

      Fadi, Don’t be a ridiculous moron, I meant to say don’t be ridiculous mon. It’s all about defeating The Iphone and ruling the world. Realize that this data provides us economists the opportunity to analyze “”"tier plans”"” (multiple quotations for “emphasis”) and whether or not “”"tier plans”"” result in less usage. HOwever that is not the only point. The other is the question “will less data usage result in lost revenue? and how does “tier plans” effect revenue?”.

    • Azeron

      It would be trolling if this were an article about AT&T solely. I would say it is simple AT&T bashing.

    • IsFadiArealPerson

      @fadi,
      Seriously? You really did just take the time to defend one of the behemoth, consumer-abusing, owns-most-of-the-fibre-and-cell-tower companies, didn’t you? Does ATT give you the warm fuzzies or something? They all sukk quite frankly, and all we’re left with is the lesser of all the evils…wake up…for your own good!

  • Rob

    Android wastes a lot of bandwidth synch useless stuff in background. Also why batteries drain so fast

  • Topher86

    So while fanboys flame against eachother, I think the surprising thing this study points out is that all you kids bitching about tiered data pricing need to stfu. You guys are the crazzzzy minority in this case, less than 2%.

  • http://crichton007.blogspot.com crichton007

    Oh snap. There goes that excuse that iPhone users use more data than anyone else *and* that Verizon couldn’t handle the iPhone even if it had one.

  • stevejobs

    I win. Now by my Iphone

    • stevejobs

      sorry. Due to antenna issues my auto-correct feature has malfunctioned. I shouldn’t have held it that way!

  • Aaron

    I’ve got both AT&T and VW blackberrys, They both have basically same coverage almost everywhere I go “which is the seattle area” My bold 9700 on AT&T usually has full bars and no problems with data connections but on verizon i fails to connect randomly, Probly two-three times a week. Also my road trip from seattle to the florida keys all together AT&T had better/stronger coverage for data and calls. That being my own Personal experience for the past 4 years having 2 carriers. then the girlfriend has T-mobile and thats just used as my paper weight when we leave town

    • Rob

      Funny. I’ve had the complete opposite experience with Blackberrys from ATT and Verizon. My IT Dept actually had to increase my data plan when the firm switched to Verizon because of the consistent reliable signal I was getting.

  • Frank

    Wimps, I would go through at least 4 GB a month when I had my iPhone .

  • DubYa

    20,000/90,000,000 is quite a small sample size. I wouldn’t put too much into this survey.

  • wanderer

    That survey is flawed just like you say every positive surveys done on iphones are. Its a small sample size, just like Dubya says.

  • latinjersey

    the reason is simple ATT offers 25000 wifi hotspots. more ATT customers use wifi.

    Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone).

  • d(*_*)b

    keyword in this article “analyzed” so how is this “study” news? at&t and verizon know that smartphones use a crap load of data the people who did this survey just wasted time and money

  • Eric

    I will play devil’s advocate: maybe it is because, for the longest time, VZW refused to carry many phones, and this especially true of Blackberry devices, with WiFi? Just a thought…

  • jerry

    android for the win … AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!

  • Will.I.Am82

    If VZW tiers data, I’m heading back to good ole’ Sprint. Say what you will. Customer service HAS substantially improved, phone offerings are amazing, and they charge less and have no data caps. The $10 useage fee on 4G is totally ok to me so long as the data I’m getting isn’t tiered. It’s friggin’ 2011 damn near. I thought the days of capped data and watching your texts, minutes and kilobytes/megabytes were over and done with. Improve your networks, people. And to anyone who wants to comment saying Sprint has a lot of unused bandwith because of the their alleged high churn rate and low post-paid subscribers, who gives a crap? They offer reliable unlimited data and unlimited 4G data for much less than VZW. I am starting to think I made a mistake switching from Sprint to VZW… VZW is a good company with a great network and the Droid X is a good phone (a bit temperamental) but I’m not too comfortable with this growing tiered data BS.

  • Bill

    Att offers wi-fi hot spots. That’s lessens data traffic. Let’s all assume AT&T smartphone users try mainly to use their data through wi-fi to avoid overage. They watch what they use now because of the tier data plans. That would affect data usage also

  • Pawdog

    What this study does for me is show that the mobile web is not ready for prime time. These companies are crying about people using 11-15 mb per day. Am I crazy or is that a minuscule amount.

    I thought people were streaming Pandora, and podcasts. Checking out YouTube videos and surfing the web.

    According to this, people are still waiting to get to the desktop and laptop at home to use the internet in any real way.

    This survey tells me that the smartphone is still just a cool novelty, as far as internet use is concerned.

    Maybe I’m missing something.

  • patrick

    not surprising. As I have noticed slower download speed as of late. Pick up the slack verizon

  • biasedboygenius

    This study is bullshit, 20,000 customers is hardly a snapshot. Where did they select these customers from? same area, same demographic….sounds like complete nonsense….this website makes me want to kick puppies.

  • Awwman

    Crap now what am I going to tell my Verizon friends who always bash on me about my iphone dropping calls??? Hopefully they won’t read this article and I can still use the, “Too many iphone users…that’s why my call quality is so bad…” lie. =(

  • grasshunter

    This is typical of the way the media twist words to make things look a certain way, the comparison is of vwz’s smartphones (a lot of different models) to one of attwireless’s smartphone models (Iphone). The report’s title and assumption is obviously flawed and attempting to steer the reader’s thoughts to come to an unrealistic conclusion.

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