LTE Customers Buy Bigger Data Plans, Study Finds

Long Term Evolution (LTE) changes end user behavior, as you might have guessed. In the United States, Canada, Germany, Korea, Japan, and the United Kingdom, LTE customers buy larger data plans, though continuing to rely heavily on Wi-Fi access, but use their mobile data plans more than 3G customers.

Both those trends arguably are helpful to LTE service providers, to the extent that larger data plans generate more revenue than smaller data plans.

In Canada, more than 21 percent of LTE subscribers are on 5-Gb to 10-GB plans, compared to 14 percent of 3G subscribers. There almost certainly is an early-adopter aspect to those purchasing decisions, so the trend might be less pronounced as mainstream users start to shift to 4G services.

Still, virtually all studies show that data consumption increases when users have access to faster Internet access services. On the other hand, Mobidia Technology studies also suggest there are some natural limits to the amount of data most mobile users will consume, even on a faster 4G network.

When looking at total data consumption on a mobile, combining mobile network plus Wi-Fi consumption, users tended to top out at about 4.5 GB per month in Japan and South Korea, and 3.2 GB per month in the U.S. market.

That tends to suggest users will not exponentially and indefinitely increase the amount of data they consume, even on a faster LTE network. The amount of data consumption will tend to flatten out because there is only so much time a consumer will want to interact with mobile data sources.

Time of engagement, in other words, acts as a natural brake on consumption. That also seems to be true, at least in South Korea, for use of Wi-Fi consumption. Apparently, you can use only so much data on a handheld device because there is only so much time to do so.

South Korean LTE subscribers used less Wi-Fi than 3G subscribers, for example. In part, that might be because the faster LTE network provides a more-satisfying experience, reducing the amount of Wi-Fi consumption driven directly by the desire for a faster connection.

In Japan the share of Wi-Fi traffic, compared to mobile network access for LTE users fell from 60 percent to 51 percent, and in the United States, Wi-Fi share dropped from 62 percent to 59 percent.

LTE subscribers are using less Wi-Fi than 3G subscribers. In April 2013, Wi-Fi

represented 67 percent of all data usage of LTE subscribers versus 72 percent of the

3G subscribers.

Wi-Fi offload remains an important form of access for mobile data users, especially

for video consumption.

Apps that subscribers value while mobile, such as Google Maps, or that subscribers

want all the time and everywhere, such as Facebook, were used more by 4G

subscribers, compared to 3G users.

However, data-hungry apps, such as music services, actually saw a drop of usage over the mobile networks and an increased use of  Wi-Fi networks. That might simply reflect growing sophistication by users.

People have figured out that they can stretch their data usage allowances by shifting video and streaming music consumption to Wi-Fi.