Consumers' Useage of Wireless Bandwidth

This report estimates the amount of wireless data bandwidth being used by U.S. consumer wireless subscribers on a per-month basis. This report also forecasts the number of consumers who use wireless data and the amount of bandwidth consumed per consumer per month through 2014. The underlying premise of this report is that, as consumers get better, faster and more powerful mobile devices and wireless data networks, along with more content and applications, they will consume ever-increasing amounts of wireless bandwidth. This same trend has occurred and is still occurring in the wireline broadband space, so there is really no reason to believe that the same will not occur in the wireless world.

In fact, wireless bandwidth consumption might actually scale faster than wireline broadband since there is so much more Web, application and audio/video content available today as opposed to even five years ago. Now that 3G networks are widely deployed, at least in the U.S., the argument could be made that the only factor holding back wireless content consumption are the devices – hence the trend toward smartphones, the somewhat nebulous “mobile Internet devices” concept and even small form factor laptop computers. Many users across the board (consumer and business) are looking for ways to replicate the desktop experience on their handheld devices – and that simple desire is part of why the iPhone has proved so successful.

Obviously, there are a great many assumptions built into a bandwidth model such as this– bandwidth per application, number of consumer wireless subscribers, types of applications used, number of times those applications are used, degree of mobility, etc. In creating this model, then, iGR relied as much as possible on survey data regarding these various factors, as well as on its wireless subscriber forecasts, consumer surveys and bandwidth/usage-related data from independent firms. The fruit of various discussion with industry participants (wireless carriers, application vendors, etc.) also played a role in creating the assumptions for this model.

This report is divided into three sections:

• Wireless subscriber base: Puts forth "a number" to size the population and segments consumers into four categories of users: extreme, heavy, medium and light.
• Application uptake: What applications are used and how often, as well as how much average bandwidth they consume.
• Total bandwidth: Aggregates the per-segment estimated bandwidth into an approximate total figure.

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