iPhone 5s Data Usage Is Higher Than Any Tablet

iPhone 5s users sure like their phones — and their data plans apparently. In the most recent study by JDSU, a technologies company dedicated to improving optical networking worldwide, they found that iPhone 5s data usage is the highest of any device. Ever. They even use more mobile data than any tablet on the market.

Apple products are no strangers to using high amounts of mobile data. In fact, an iPhone has been at the top of the annual study since 2010. Originally, the study only looked at 3G devices, but even then the iPhone 4 dominated the data market.

With iPhone 6 rumors swirling all over the internet, this news has to make Apple investors happy. The implications are that Apple’s flagship handset device, the iPhone 5s is being used more regularly by its customers than any other device. But the report revealed much more than that.

iPhone 5s data usage was 20 percent higher than the previous iPhone 5 and seven times higher than the iPhone 3G. Let that sink in for a moment. iPhone 5s users are sucking down 4G/LTE data so fast that.1 percent of users account for over half of the entire data usage.

Tablets on the other hand only saw two devices in the top ten. The most data hungry tablet? Apple’s fourth generation iPad. Interestingly, the iPad mini has shown to consume very little data. All of this usage on mobile handsets has market strategists wondering, what’s next?

Some of the high data usage can be chalked up to the constant release of new products. Call it the Christmas syndrome. With the release of a new flagship phone every year, Apple started a trend that other producers, like Samsung with their Galaxy series, have picked up on. On Christmas, children can not wait to play with all their new toys. The release of phones has created the same mentality, but in adults. Upon purchasing their brand new iPhone 5s, consumers are using large amounts of data. But what the amount of data usage is not going down over time.

“The faster the speeds that mobile operators provide, the more consumers swallow it up and demand more,” said Michael Flanagan, CTO of Mobility for the Network and Service Enablement business segment of JDSU and author of the study. “One would expect a honeymoon period in which early adopters test their toys. But for 4G users to consistently exhibit behaviour 10 times more extreme than 3G users well after launch constitutes a seismic shift in the data landscape. This has important ramifications for future network designs.”

A common phrase used now in the world of data usage and networking is “extreme users”. 4G users of the major phone brands are quickly becoming labeled in studies like the one performed by JDSU. It can only leave consumers guessing how data providers will begin dealing with the potential issue of stressed networks. Charging extreme users more? Creating special extreme user hotspots? Only time will tell.