Whose Smartphone Customers Use the Most Data Per Month? AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile or Verizon?

Electronista doesn’t have to work too hard to convince me that mobile phone companies’ wireless data plans charge way too much for people who do not even come close to their plan’s monthly data quota. Here, they report on a study by Validas.

Study: tiered data plans still unfair for many subscribers (Electronista)

Are You Leaving Data On The Table With Your Smartphone Plan? (Validas)

Two-thirds of the way through my billing cycle, I have only used 350.78MB of the 4GB available in my plan. This is despite even the hours of tethering use (I pay for iPhone 4 hotspot option).

According to Validas, Sprint has the highest smartphone data use of the big four int the U.S. Sprint’s users consume an average of 778.8MB per month with a median of 371.0MB. AT&T users are at a distant second with an average of 425MB used per month with a median of 155.8MB (less than half of Sprint users’ median). Validas points out that Sprint’s unlimited data plan may encourage their customers to use more data than other carriers with data use constraints.

Validas’ data supports the claims made by mobile phone companies that a relatively small group of users consume a great deal of data compared to the majority of data using customers. The large disparities between the mean (average) and median for each mobile phone company supports this claim.

Source : socialtimes

45,000 Strike at Verizon as Landline Business Collapses

This will go down as an annus horribilis for labor. The high-profile showdowns between players and owners in the NBA and NFL are puny compared to the 45,000 unionized employees with Verizon's wired business who went on strike at midnight Saturday night. The affected workers "are responsible for maintaining and repairing traditional landlines, as well as installing FiOS," the Washington Post reported. The company's wireless division is not affected.

As much as this story represents the long erosion of labor's power and the corresponding rise of health care costs, it also represents a secular collapse inside telecom. Between 2006 and 2011, Verizon landlines have declined from 47 million to 25 million -- nearly a 50% collapse in five years.

As cell phones replace landlines for younger generations, the wired telecom carrier industry is one of the most troubled in the country. The $150 billion business declined by half in the last decade and is projected to decline by more than another third in the next five years. The vast majority of businesses still keep a wired phone by each computer station, but some analysts expect that the union of Microsoft and Skype could speed up the voice-over-Internet revolution in offices.

In a review of the fastest dying industries, IBISWorld wrote that wired telecom "has declined in every year [and] they are generating lower returns each year as consumers switch to VoIP and wireless products."