By 
New industry studies today show that users of Android eat up more bandwidth than those using other smartphone platforms, such as Windows, Blackberry, iOS, and Symbian. There were no hard numbers to be found, but there is a frighteningly-simple explanation for these results: there are more Android handsets on each carrier than other types of smartphones. Shocking!
The iPhone and iPad (3G) sit on one carrier, Blackberry phones aren’t meant to chug data, and there are only a couple of Windows Phone 7 handsets per carrier, if that. Symbian is almost non-existent in the US, of course. So when you take Android – an operating system built for the web, the cloud, and all of the other obnoxious buzzwords we hear in press releases every day – and put it on a boatload of devices, it’s going to eat more data. There are at least 5 actively-supported Android devices on every major carrier, and many more in the list of those deprecated or close to being deprecated.
“When more could be done, more tends to be done,” says Arieso’s CTO Michael Flanagan. And what phones do more than Android phones on every network? Don’t forget to factor in the 4G radios that we’re now starting to see in phones for Sprint, T-Mobile, and soon to be Verizon. [Reuters]
FIRST!!!
i only use about 600MB a month on my EVO
2 – 3 GB here, No wonder carriers are moving to caps…. sheesh
Its from the ad supported apps
First
I was using around ~200 MB a month and then I got my MyTouch 4G and with video chat I’ve chewed through almost a GB in a couple days.
Umm, I think they’re talking about data usage _per_user_, so the number of devices doesn’t matter.
Yea I stream Pandora all the time 5 GB in a few days. It would majorly suck if VZW caped us.
This just in….water is wet!!!!
I’ve been hitting 2+ GB on Verizon/month lately, most of it just from streaming music on my drive to work.
@ThinkOpenly I never disputed this. And the number of devices does matter because choice drives sales, and when you have $0 Android phones being sold that can do the same things that $200 phones can, you’ll incur a lot more Android users.
How about linking to the source? Is there a possibility that the original study shows more data is being downloaded *per device* by Android users than other platforms? Any other measurement would be a non-story as it would relate to the total number of devices (as this article points out).
If this is the case, it would make sense- I synced my iPhones daily, but update my podcasts, etc. on my Android device over the air.
I think part of my multi-gb per month usage comes from pdanet. I’m a student so I typically have wireless where ever I go on campus, so I don’t need mobile broadband, but when I roam off campus and need internet Android lets me tether for *free. (*I paid the $20 for pdanet- easytether was acting up on my pc, and I frequently go to https sites)
I’m using around 300MB monthly, but that said I’m in South Africa and our out of bundle rates are U$290 per gig. Awesome
Makes sense, especially with the easy ways of tethering on android. I use about 8GB to 10GB a month on tmobile with a vibrant 2.2 obsidian v2 on a data only plan ($40/month). I use google voice+sip for unlimited calling and texting running though my data connection, plus I stream video/music all the time and connect my PS3 and laptop for netflix web browsing through the phones hot spot feature.
Well, I’m on sprint on I’m on unlimited data so I will use my as much data as possible because that’s what I’m paying extra money for, not only that Sprint stated that the$10 extra a month is not only for 4g but because evo users are tend to use more data. This is why I use my evo WiFi tether as my everyday use at home, pc, ps3,itouch and and zune
Last month I used 7.5…..this month isnt even half way thru and I’m using 2.5…good thing sprint is unlimited….I’m using a hero
Gotta feed the robot, Andy’s always hungry!
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Seriously though, I wonder how much of that takes into account tethering. I bought my Tab as wifi only simply because I knew my G2 could create wifi hotspots if needed.
I routinely use about 1.5gb per month… sometimes usage has gone up to 2.2gb. Anyway, I’m not that familiar with other platforms, but isn’t Android the only one with the ability to have many backgrounds processes using data? Weather, News, Twitter, Facebook, Mint.com, etc… these all update in the background on my N1. On something like an iPhone, don’t these types of apps only update when a user opens them?
I use my phone and tablet all the time but I have never gone about about 1Gig. My average now is around 500megs or so.
-B
i’ve been using 1-1.5 gigs on my moment
I can believe it, My billing cycle started today and I have already used 57mb. I checked out all of our androids’ usage this past billing cycle. My dad has an Evo and used 1.3GB, my brother has the Hero and he used a little over 2GB, and I also have an Evo and used 3GB
I use upwards of 5-8 gb a month but I have a nexus one with built in tethering that I use to supply my laptop with internet sometimes the rest is all song downloads and pandora as well as background data
15gb – tmobile HATES me
Hopefully T-Mobile goes capless or at least raises their cap to 20gb’s at the looks of these numbers.
It’s from the ads, we are cheap! (Just a joke.)
Bluegrass cellular.. hero… ~3-4GB a month… Poor Bluegrass, I bet before me, they didn’t go through that much between all of their customers.
ive been cutoff by verizon on my main line once for exceeding 7 gigabytes and twice on my second line “i use my second line for tethering” i feel like a good contributer to this lol
First!!!
I thought mr. jobs said that “no one will surf the net on a small device”???