By this point it’s fair to say that it is more or less impossible to live a truly stress free and comfortable life if you don’t have constant access to the internet. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that for a lot of people that tend to move about a lot over the course of their day, pretty much the only way in which they can stay connected is to use mobile data.
The only problem with mobile data is that it is often limited. Telecom companies do this because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up boosting their profits, and at the same time it can’t be ignored that providing mobile data requires a massive logistical framework and it just isn’t feasible to provide customers with unlimited data in a lot of settings. The thing that might surprise people is that in the most powerful and rich country in the world, it appears to be far more likely that you will hit your data limit than it would be in a lot of other countries around the world.
About 32% of respondents in a recent YouGov survey who were American said that they hit their data limit on a regular basis. This was higher than Germany where 30% of respondents said the same, the UK where 23% of respondents said the same, France where 22% said that they agreed this was an issue and at the top of the list was Japan where about 12% of people felt like they tended to reach their data limit and that this was a more or less regular occurrence that they needed to go through.
The reason why this is so relevant has to do with the impending widespread rollout of 5G. The thing that ends up setting 5G apart from the rest is the fact that it manages to provide speeds that had previously been unheard of. This is obviously going to make a large number of things much easier for people, but at the same time if people have faster internet connections then they will invariably end up using far more data which would mean that the percentage of people hitting their data limits would start to rise thereby turning it into an even greater issue than it is right now.
Media consumption on mobile phones has been on the rise anyway, going up by 4 percentage points for both video as well as audio. Telecom companies will have to try and keep this in mind because if people don’t have significant data limits that they can take advantage of then they might just end up getting severely restricted with regards to how much they can even use 5G in the first place.
This highlights the complicated nature of innovation. Just because one thing has gotten a lot better doesn’t mean that other things aren’t going to get in the way and cause quite a few roadblocks. A holistic approach is required so that consumers can start to properly use this new form of tech and improve their lives once it becomes relatively commonplace.
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The only problem with mobile data is that it is often limited. Telecom companies do this because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up boosting their profits, and at the same time it can’t be ignored that providing mobile data requires a massive logistical framework and it just isn’t feasible to provide customers with unlimited data in a lot of settings. The thing that might surprise people is that in the most powerful and rich country in the world, it appears to be far more likely that you will hit your data limit than it would be in a lot of other countries around the world.
About 32% of respondents in a recent YouGov survey who were American said that they hit their data limit on a regular basis. This was higher than Germany where 30% of respondents said the same, the UK where 23% of respondents said the same, France where 22% said that they agreed this was an issue and at the top of the list was Japan where about 12% of people felt like they tended to reach their data limit and that this was a more or less regular occurrence that they needed to go through.
The reason why this is so relevant has to do with the impending widespread rollout of 5G. The thing that ends up setting 5G apart from the rest is the fact that it manages to provide speeds that had previously been unheard of. This is obviously going to make a large number of things much easier for people, but at the same time if people have faster internet connections then they will invariably end up using far more data which would mean that the percentage of people hitting their data limits would start to rise thereby turning it into an even greater issue than it is right now.
Media consumption on mobile phones has been on the rise anyway, going up by 4 percentage points for both video as well as audio. Telecom companies will have to try and keep this in mind because if people don’t have significant data limits that they can take advantage of then they might just end up getting severely restricted with regards to how much they can even use 5G in the first place.
This highlights the complicated nature of innovation. Just because one thing has gotten a lot better doesn’t mean that other things aren’t going to get in the way and cause quite a few roadblocks. A holistic approach is required so that consumers can start to properly use this new form of tech and improve their lives once it becomes relatively commonplace.
