AT&T was the first major carrier to introduce tiered pricing for mobile data, on fears that iPhone users might end up using too much, but it turns out Verizon users are the ones who are eating up the wireless spectrum.
A new study from Validas found that so far this year, the average monthly data consumption for a Verizon smartphone is 421 MB, while the iPhone only clocked in at 338 MB.
Validas noted that 52% of iPhone users are only taking up less than 200 MB of data every month. While 11% of Verizon smartphone customers use between 500 MB to 1 GB of data per month, only 5.6% iPhone owners fell into that category, and more than twice as many Verizon customers are using more than 2 GB per month than those with an iPhone.
The reason that so many people are not taking their iPhone through data-intensive applications is likely because the phone has become something of a status symbol. There are consumers out there who buy the latest iPhone just because people are talking about it, even though they have no intention, or even wherewithal, to use the device to its potential.
Meanwhile, customers who decide to buy a Droid or Droid X know what they want in a phone, a key component of which is being able to connect online for various personal and professional purposes.
The numbers slightly make up for this, though, because it takes into account all Verizon smartphones, including low-end ones that non-data-intensive users will buy. Even so, there is obviously substantial more pressure on Verizon’s data network than there is on AT&T, and yet the latter is the one that was so quick to put monetary caps on its data limits.
