Droid X Owners Consuming 5x as Much Data

By Jane McEntegart
published

What are you Droid X owners doing with your phones?

Verizon is rumored to be moving away from unlimited data plans and towards a tiered system, and with more and more customers purchasing smartphones, it's easy to see why.

The advent of smartphones for the masses has meant a significant number of people who previously wouldn't have required a data plan at all, are guzzling MBs thanks to data-intensive applications on their phones. Last month, Verizon's John Killian said things were expected to get even worse for wireless networks as new phones designed for 4G networks incorporate even more data-intensive apps, like video downloads.

Well, it looks like the first of those phones has arrived. Though it's not a 4G phone (Verizon's 4G network is supposedly launching in November), Droid X users are supposedly using way more data than users of any other phone on the network. Verizon's Business Development Executive Director, Jennifer Byrne, has said Droid X users are using five times the data than any other phone on the network.

Byrne was speaking at a PaidContent Mobile conference where she was discussing the increasing data usage on mobile devices with a number of other panelists.

Source: PaidContent via AndroidSpin

Jane McEntegart

Jane McEntegart works in marketing communications at Intel and was previously Manager of Content Marketing at ASUS North America. Before that, she worked for more than seven years at Tom's Guide and Tom's Hardware, holding such roles as Contributing Editor and Senior News Editor and writing about everything from smartphones to tablets and games consoles.

41 Comments Comment from the forums
  • borisof007
    Hopefully they won't get charged 5 times more on their cell phone bills.
    Reply
  • zoemayne
    If they limit phones to even 10GB than you might as forget about video.
    Reply
  • mp562
    Was she using a Droid X when she was discussing the increased data usage?
    Reply
  • blurr91
    I guess Droid users can hold the phones "correctly."
    Reply
  • jimmysmitty
    blurr91I guess Droid users can hold the phones "correctly."
    Lol

    Its no suprise. The thing has a massive screen great for watching videos and can probably easily support higher res videos from YouTube and such.

    If anything this should sway VZW away from moving to a tierd data plan.
    Reply
  • digitalrazoe
    ( No disrespect to THG ) Dear Cell phone companies .. this is news why ?? You are surprised WHY? 5 times the data WHY ? hmmm lets see .. May I give you one bit of advice. Stop being surprised and lets get the infrastructure built so there is no Gotchas... we are consumers .. give us an inch we will take that mile... Meetings are going all the time to figure out how to scalp the next 20 bucks a month to cover your short comings .. There is a good chance that some of the very people that retired or got "fired" , let go , what ever tried to warn the likes of AT&T, Verizon, Sprint ( add your cell provider here ) that this was going to happen ... did you listen ? Probably not because you are too busy scratching your head!.. SO my dearest providers that sell these wonderful phones.. Reach out to those that have a better Idea than you realizing that the person that has the best idea may be beneath you in rank OR older in wisdom ... and common sense.

    Thank you ---
    Reply
  • Rhynn
    That's only because the phones are BRAND SPANKING NEW. They have to download -everything- onto an empty phone. This statistic is pure nonsense and only something a corporate spokesperson would put out to reinforce the corporate greed motive behind ending unlimited data plans. Check those statistics again after 3 months,. I guarantee they drop by about oh...5x.
    Reply
  • jerreece
    Not that this means it's untrue... however I just spoke with Verizon Tech/Customer support about 40 minutes ago. As of this evening, they have not been told about unlimited data plans going away. :)

    Though, a local private Verizon retailer (not a corporate store) gave me the head nod indicating he'd heard Verizon may indeed do so.

    The Droid X piqued my interests as a potential BlackBerry replacement for me next year. But, without and unlimited data plan, I probably won't be upgrading anything. I told the Verizon representative I'd use my phone until it crapped out to keep my "grandfathered" data plan.
    Reply
  • mdillenbeck
    RhynnThat's only because the phones are BRAND SPANKING NEW. They have to download -everything- onto an empty phone. This statistic is pure nonsense and only something a corporate spokesperson would put out to reinforce the corporate greed motive behind ending unlimited data plans. Check those statistics again after 3 months,. I guarantee they drop by about oh...5x.
    I'm going to disagree with you. Larger screen, better video streaming capabilities, ability to upload larger video files from the phone to youtube.

    My guess - if you look at phones they bill as larger screen, full web browsing experience, video streaming capable, etc. then they will use 5x or more data than phones that have mobile web browsers, limited "apps" for interfacing with social network sites, email, and no ability to stream video (or take decent video to upload to youtube).

    The problem with the idea of their current caps is they are basing them on old data with phones that didn't have the capabilities of the new ones. These new phones are multimedia beasts. Would you want your ISP to base usage caps on old 56k modem data from a day when web pages were mostly static text and a couple of tiny gifs? No, you have broadband and multimedia computers that are capable of HD playback - and you want to use it without paying hundreds to thousands of dollars a month due to data overage charges.
    Reply
  • fyasko
    if you hold your phone correctly you too can have full data throughput.
    Reply