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A new study suggests T-Mobile customers use the most data
- The study was performed by Strategy Analytics and surveyed 4,000 Android users to find out their data usage.
- T-Mobile customers used the most cellular data, while Verizon customers used the most data while connected to Wi-Fi.
- Average data usage is probably lower than the study indicates due to over-sampling of high data usage participants.
T-Mobile customers are likely the king of the hill when it comes to data usage. A new study from Strategy Analytics surveyed 4,000 Android users and found that T-Mobile customers use more cellular data than Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint customers.
According to the survey, T-Mobile customers used an average of 5,251 MB (~5.2 GB) of cellular data every month. Sprint customers came in second with an average usage of 4,350 MB (~4.3 GB), followed by Verizon customers at 3,634 MB (~3.6 GB), and AT&T customers at 2,385 MB (~2.3 GB). As for Wi-Fi, Verizon subscribers use the most (14,336 MB), followed by Sprint (13,752 MB), T-Mobile (13,084 MB), and AT&T (11,410 MB).
T-Mobile’s entire strategy revolves around unlimited data plans. The company no longer offers tiered data plans and pushes current customers to switch over to T-Mobile ONE plans. These plans provide unlimited data, and most new phone promotions require customers to have a ONE plan. T-Mobile also offers the highest deprioritization limited at 50 GB. That cap, along with unlimited data, provide little disincentive to customers to watch their data usage.
T-Mobile’s plans contrast with offerings from the nation’s two biggest carriers, AT&T and Verizon. Both continue to offer tiered data plans alongside their unlimited plans. Their tiered plans offer generally anywhere from 3 to 10 GB of data every month. The companies also have deprioritization caps set at 22 GB. Even if unlimited users wanted to more mobile data, their speeds could be slowed once they hit that cap.
While these numbers give us an interesting look, the study isn’t scientific. It polled 4,000 Android device owners who had to download an app and opt into the study. The participants likely lean towards a younger and more tech-savvy crowd. Tech-savvy users are more likely to use more mobile data, so it is possible that they’re misrepresenting actual average data usage. Data usage numbers directly from the carriers would likely paint a similar, but slightly different picture.