Mobile Broadband Spend up 40%

A new report published by Nokia Siemens shows that monthly spend has increased significantly between 2009 and 2010. The average monthly spend on mobile broadband in Britain, France, Germany and Spain has increased by 40% year on year. The monthly spend is a good indicator of growth as it measure actual usage of new and existing mobile broadband customers.

Nokia Siemens attributed the rise in spend to two factors: "Increased usage of mobile broadband among existing customers and higher penetration of the service in market segments with more disposable income." Bundled offers such as the many free laptop deals are also likely to be an important factor.



The report also found that a quarter of those who do not currently use mobile broadband have considered signing up. 31% of current users with a mobile connection intended to access the internet via mobile broadband more often. Depending on these user's contract this may involve an increased monthly spend.

Interestingly only 27% of those polled accessed the internet via desktop and standard laptop devices, a third of subscribers used a netbook or mini laptop. 25% used smartphones such as the iPhone and HTC Desire or other smart devices such as the new Apple iPad.

Facebook and Google Top Mobile Internet Usage Charts

The GMSA and comScore have released the results of their first Mobile Media Metrics report. The report aims to investigate mobile internet usage including which sites are visited and by how many users. The first report has shown some very interesting usage patterns and statistics. Below is a quote from the GSMA explain how the data is collated:

"The GSMA Mobile Media Metrics service is based on anonymised, census-level data for mobile Internet usage across mobile networks, which is augmented with demographic data that has been collected with the consent of a representative sample of mobile Internet users. The Mobile Media Metrics service provides a rich, aggregated view of mobile Internet usage behaviour, enabling market-level analysis of site visitation and engagement metrics, such as page views, time spent on specific sites, and device types and features."

The report discovered that last December about 25% of the UK population accessed the internet via a mobile phone. This is quite a staggering statistic but doesn't come as a huge surprise when you consider that around a fifth of mobile phone subscribers (i.e those on a contract rather than those with a pay as you go mobiles) have a 'smart phone'.

The bulk of the traffic analyzed was unsurprisingly either to Facebook or Google sites. Below is a chart detailing the top 10 sites in terms of minutes spent online via mobile devices (via this Guardian article):

1 Facebook 2.2 bn
2 Google 396m
3 Microsoft Sites 166m
4 Orange Sites 139m
5 AOL (and Bebo) 106m
6 Apple 104m
7 Vodafone 89m
8 BBC sites 84m
9 Flirtomatic 55m
10 Yahoo 49m

Facebook's hits accounted for over a third of all internet visits via mobile phones although the presence of Google at #2 shows that users are going beyond sites they already know.

Pay As You Go Mobile Broadband Overtakes Fixed Cost

October sales figures have shown that for the first time pay as you go mobile broadband contracts have become more popular than fixed price contacts. According to Broadband-Expert.co.uk 53% of new customers in October chose the pre paid option. This is the first time pay as you go has overtaken fixed usage contracts.

Pay as you go mobile broadband has been increasing in popularity over recent years particularly with infrequent internet users. The ability to only pay for usage rather than fixed monthly fee means that the contracts, like those of pay as you go phones, tend to work out cheaper. They also offer an alternative to the 12-24 month contracts often necessary for prepaid mobile broadband.

Recent years have seen an increase in 'light users' who only go on line occasionally to check their email or use Ebay etc. For these people a fixed line broadband connection is an unnecessary expense and mobile broadband a suitable alternative. Pay as go go offers the most competitive deals and has seen its popularity rise during the recession.

Smart Phone Etiquette

Ours is the first generation to grow up with the mobile phone and the internet. We now have the internet in our hands in the form of the smart phone but when isn't it smart to use your phone? Can you check your emails in company without causing offense?



A report commissioned by Intel has investigated people's attitudes to smart phone usage and found that most people are still uncomfortable if you use your phone in their company. 69% of participants thought that mobile phones should stay in the pocket in company. Only 60% thought that going online or using your phone during a date was bad manners.

Half of those asked thought that going on line at the dinner table was a no-no. The other half aren't welcome at my house! The worst offenders in my opinion are those strange people who think that it is okay to play music out loud via their mobile phone's speaker in public. These people tend to have bad taste in music along with poor judgment.

Television Channels Try Free Content As Online TV Usage Increasing

Another day, another broadband study, this time about those who watch television programs online. For those of us who are old enough to remember dial-up watching full length TV programs online without any significant loading time still seems amazing. Now that speeds have increased around 15% of those 'with a reliable broadband connection' use the BBC's iPlayer service to watch programs online.



Television channels are starting to realize that they need to put their content online for free in order to reach viewers who are watching less television. They know that if they don't offer their content online somebody else will and they might as well be getting the ad revenue. Channel 4 have recently put a large percentage of their back catalog online via their 4OD service after failed experiments with an online pay-per-view service.

The stats from this study would seem to contradict those of a recent study by YouGov into online viewing. 53% of those asked by YouGov said that they would not watch more online TV even if they had a faster, more reliable connection. Whatever the stats say it seems to me that the idea of watching a program at a fixed time via a television will one day seem as old fashioned as dial-up.

1 In 4 People Don't Know Their Mobile Broadband Download Limit

One of the most important factors to be taken into consideration when choosing a Mobile Broadband contract is the monthly download limit. It can be difficult to estimate what your average monthly usage will be but it is important to get the right allowance. Those who use the internet to check emails and make occasional purchases are likely to be 'light' users. Those who download music, stream videos and use the internet daily will need a higher limit to avoid incurring costs.

Going over your download limit can result in surprising large charges which are more like fines than payment for extra usage. In fact O2 has been criticized for charging a whopping £200.70 per extra GB. To put it in context that would get you about 12 months of Mobile Broadband with most providers. The cost of providing extra bandwidth does not justify this fee which O2 have referred to as 'a deterrent'.



A recent survey has shown that around 25% of Mobile Broadband users don't know what their download limit is. This puts them at risk of incurring a charge for every extra MB used. Most providers inform their pay as you go or fixed contract users when they are nearing their limit although this shouldn't be relied upon. Those looking to sign up for Mobile broadband can estimate their monthly downloads using Three's Data Usage Calculator.

American Mobile Broadband Usage Rises

As I have mentioned previously Mobile Broadband has taken off in a big way. An increasingly large percentage of the population connects via a mobile device and the demographic continues to widen. Until now there has been less information available about mobile broadband take-up in America. A new report from the Pew Research Center has changed that.

The report shows that mobile connections are continuing to increase in popularity in the USA. Around 56 percent of American Adults have used a mobile connection in 2009 in 2007 this figure was around 25 percent. It is worth noting that the research includes connections via 3G mobile devices for instance high-end mobile phones. The launch of the iPhone has helped to popularize internet enabled portable devices and gone part of the way to banishing the terrible memories of WAP connection and tiny screens.

"Mobile access strengthens the three pillars of online engagement: connecting with others, satisfying information queries and sharing content with others" - John B. Horrigan of the Pew Project

19 percent of Americans questioned said that they use a mobile internet device (either a cell phone or a mobile broadband enabled laptop) on a daily basis. The fact that the best mobile broadband offers continue to decrease in price and the availability of good pay as you go mobile broadband with greater coverage means that these figures are likely to increase. Good internet access is becoming the number one selling point for new mobile phones and the technology is improving rapidly. I wouldn't be surprised if this time next year two thirds of Americans had connected via a mobile device at some point.