According to network firm Arieso, Apple's voice-powered personal assistant gimmick service Siri results in the iPhone 4S using twice as much data as the iPhone 4, putting additional strain on carriers who were already struggling to accommodate the device. Their full study on smartphone data usage is worth a read, noting that heavy users are getting even hungrier, with just 1% of subscribers now consuming half of all downloaded data on wireless networks.
"The introduction of increasingly sophisticated devices, coupled with growing consumer demand, is creating unrelenting pressure on mobile networks. The capacity crunch is still a very real threat for mobile operators, and it looks set to only get harder in 2012," said Dr. Michael Flanagan, CTO, Arieso and study author. The mobile industry needs new investment and new approaches to boost network performance and manage the customer experience."
The firm notes iPhone 4S users download 276% more data than the average iPhone 3GS user. The next heaviest smartphone users are Galaxy S users, who consume 199% more data than iPhone 3GS users. Still, you wonder how much of the surge in iPhone 4S data traffic is just early adopters having fun with their phones, and if this is anything more than a radar blip as users show off their new devices.
The firm also has a vested interest in highlighting congestion to sell products that can resolve it, so their suggestion that there's some unmanageable bandwidth apocalypse afoot is par for the course for these kinds of reports. The story remains the same: carriers that fail to adequately invest in network infrastructure tend to have problems. In an age where quarterly investor returns trump consumer interests or even network health, there's more than a few companies that fall into that category.
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Siri is a Little Bandwidth Pig - iPhone 4S Consumes Twice the Data of iPhone 4
Posted: January 6th, 2012, 6:52am MST