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July 19, 2013

Data Allowance Now Top Priority for UK Mobile Users

By Gary Kim, Contributing Editor

For 43 percent of respondents to a U.K. survey, data allowances now have become more important than the number of minutes in a mobile service plan. For those respondents, the top priority for users, when choosing a service plan, is the amount of the data allowance (presumably assuming pricing is roughly comparable).



Still, for 41 percent of respondents, the size of the voice bucket still is the top criteria.

Those results are one more indication of a potential future trend, namely, service providers offering of data-only phones that do not include voice service, much as mobile broadband dongles allow only Internet access.

Randall Stephenson, AT&T (News - Alert) CEO, has said he believes such plans are inevitable, and that such plans could be in the market by 2014 or so.

The importance of the data allowance arguably is a function of the importance of Web-based apps and Internet communications apps such as e-mail. Some 73 percent of survey respondents reported that Web access was essential.

Likewise, 71 percent indicated e-mail access also was essential. As other surveys have shown, people are using voice less as they shift to Internet-supported messaging, text communication modes or simply spend more time engaging with Web or native apps.

Some 26 percent of respondents consume less than 30 minutes of voice a month. Some 23 percent, however, spend more than five hours each month browsing the Web on their phones.

About nine percent of respondents say they make or receive five hours worth of calls a month.

Some 32 percent of respondents have allowances of less than 300 minutes per month and just 11 percent buy service that includes unlimited minutes. Twenty-five percent of respondents estimate they use less than a fifth of their minutes each month, while eight percent use more than 80 percent of their voice allowances.




Edited by Rachel Ramsey
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