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13% (And Growing) Only Use Smartphone for Broadband

A growing number of consumers are choosing to use a wireless smartphone as their only broadband connectivity, according to a new report by Pew Research. Pew's full report indicates that 13% of Americans now get broadband connectivity solely through their smartphone, up from 8% just a few years earlier. The report notes that the lion's share of these users are younger, lower-income, less educated, or black or Hispanic – the same groups that also have lower rates of home broadband adoption.

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That said, Pew notes that while these users may forgo a fixed-line connection due to cost, high prices and mobile usage caps prevent mobile connectivity from being a real solution to the "digital divide."

"Although smartphones help those without home broadband to access the internet, this group frequently encounters a number of constraints with data caps," notes Pew. "The Center’s survey, conducted in October 2014, found that smartphone-dependent internet users are more likely to have canceled or suspended their service because of financial constraints (48% vs. 21%) or have reached their plans’ data caps (51% vs. 35%)."

While many of these users say that going smartphone only results in problems accessing and reading content or submitting files and documents, Pew found that 65% of the smartphone-only Americans say the smartphone lets them do all they need to online.
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dslwanter
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Mineral Ridge, OH
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dslwanter

Premium Member

Certainly Improving

If I run a speedtest on Verizon LTE at my house, I'm getting around 36mbps, this has been at random times day and night. Ping is around 80ms. From a wireless standpoint, speed is about the same as my wifi on my 50mbps cable. Data Caps are an issue though. If the price and data cap was right, I'd dump my cable connection for it. It's getting to a point where we need DOCSIS 3.1 from Armstrong or Fiber from AT&T, otherwise a mobile connection is becoming good enough.

Anon943b3
@charter.com

1 recommendation

Anon943b3

Anon

Re: Certainly Improving

you're going to have to wait until 5G rolls out in about 4 or 5 years. Despite what many people think current tech can not allow one to have a truly unlimited plan like cable can offer or even the 1 TB caps Comcast and at&t offer.

dslwanter
20 years on this site
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Mineral Ridge, OH

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dslwanter

Premium Member

Re: Certainly Improving

Hence I said if the price and data cap was right, it is not. 30gb for 120 a month is a joke but the speed is getting there. Ping, not great, but improved.

Anon943b3
@charter.com

Anon943b3

Anon

Re: Certainly Improving

said by dslwanter:

Hence I said if the price and data cap was right, it is not. 30gb for 120 a month is a joke but the speed is getting there. Ping, not great, but improved.

Lower than what it was a few years ago. Fact is you simply can't have everyone tethering and streaming 500 GB of Netflix a month. Now in 5 years when you have 50X the capacity then sure.

whfsdude
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join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC

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whfsdude to Anon943b3

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to Anon943b3
said by Anon943b3 :

you're going to have to wait until 5G rolls out in about 4 or 5 years

I don't think we're going to see a ton of 5G deployments for mobile broadband for urban or suburban customers. Let's say the carriers deploy in 28-40GHz range, you're going to be talking in terms of feet of coverage (exception being microwave PtP setups).

Feet of coverage will make sense in dense urban downtowns, subway/rail/airports, stadiums, etc. Probably not for mobile broadband home users without dramatically increasing costs.

Look at Clearwire's failure with 2.5Ghz. For 5G, we're talking 28Ghz+.

Think of the CapEx and tower problems.

- Real estate costs for leasing pole rights.

- Backhaul required to all the 5G radios

- Lots of plants have limited/no power (eg. in my neighborhood all the power is underground)

- Underground telco plants

- Weight requirements (can 4 carriers place strand mounted radios for 5G?)

So if the premise of the article is right, and these people are leaving wired broadband for cheaper wireless, they're going to be jumping back to wired as 5G wireless prices are going to need to go way up for "5G" mobile broadband.
elefante72
join:2010-12-03
East Amherst, NY

2 recommendations

elefante72

Member

Re: Certainly Improving

You can add up all that cost and it is still lower than running fiber into every prem.

THe big issue w/ the US is that the government was just stupid and should have qualified internet as a utility so there is just one connection into a house (not 3 like mine) and now infrastructure costs are like 50% the cost (the last mile is brutal).

So instead these guys can minimize the last mile costs by going to some fixed wireless variant. Much cheaper and that way they don't have sunk costs stringing fiber to every house and then after 6 months the person flips to another provider...
elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA

1 recommendation

elray

Member

Re: Certainly Improving

said by elefante72:

You can add up all that cost and it is still lower than running fiber into every prem.

THe big issue w/ the US is that the government was just stupid and should have qualified internet as a utility so there is just one connection into a house (not 3 like mine) and now infrastructure costs are like 50% the cost (the last mile is brutal).

Not quite. Cable broadband happened, the result of the government NOT "qualifying internet as a utility", and Cable's "greed" - where they were willing to repeatedly re-invest in plant upgrades.

Without coax, we'd still be paying state-regulated rates for telco copper tiers, i.e. $60/month for 1.5M, and the utility would have no incentive, at all, to improve service or value.

dslwanter
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Mineral Ridge, OH
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dslwanter

Premium Member

Re: Certainly Improving

Here's a question, when does it inherently become a utility, even without being classified as such? If that makes any sense. For example, AT&T ripping out copper in some of it's territories and replacing it with fiber. It becomes "U-Verse Digital Phone" or whatever it will be called as they are ditching the U-Verse branding and no longer offering "landline" since the copper plant is gone?
grabacon9
join:2013-08-21
Newark, OH

grabacon9 to elray

Member

to elray
Close. I pay $49/month for AT&T Uverse 1.5 Mb. I am sure that the higher plans are worse.

Anon943b3
@charter.com

Anon943b3 to whfsdude

Anon

to whfsdude
said by whfsdude:

I don't think we're going to see a ton of 5G deployments for mobile broadband for urban or suburban customers. Let's say the carriers deploy in 28-40GHz range, you're going to be talking in terms of feet of coverage (exception being microwave PtP setups).

Except in testing 70 GHz can reach 3-6 MILES.

Feet of coverage will make sense in dense urban downtowns, subway/rail/airports, stadiums, etc. Probably not for mobile broadband home users without dramatically increasing costs.

If you live in the city you have access to broadband already. Thus you shouldn't be trying to use mobile as you main internet.

Look at Clearwire's failure with 2.5Ghz. For 5G, we're talking 28Ghz+.

Apples and oranges. Was 2.5 GHz 5G? nope.

whfsdude
Premium Member
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC

whfsdude

Premium Member

Re: Certainly Improving

said by Anon943b3 :

The UE such as a smartphone or mobile hotspot can't talk back to BTS over 70Ghz for more than a few hundred feet. 70Ghz over 36 miles is LoS PTP.

Doing site surveys and planning LoS towers drives the cost up significantly. Meanwhile, operating wireline network continues to get cheaper, especially when dealing with fiber.

Look at Clearwire's failure with 2.5Ghz. For 5G, we're talking 28Ghz+.
Apples and oranges. Was 2.5 GHz 5G? nope.

You know what killed Clearwire. Price of backhaul and real estate prices with minimal uptake for broadband adoption. If Clear

neofate
Caveat Depascor
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join:2003-11-11
Birmingham, AL

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neofate

Premium Member

Re: Certainly Improving

said by whfsdude:

said by Anon943b3 :

The UE such as a smartphone or mobile hotspot can't talk back to BTS over 70Ghz for more than a few hundred feet. 70Ghz over 36 miles is LoS PTP.

Doing site surveys and planning LoS towers drives the cost up significantly. Meanwhile, operating wireline network continues to get cheaper, especially when dealing with fiber.

Look at Clearwire's failure with 2.5Ghz. For 5G, we're talking 28Ghz+.
Apples and oranges. Was 2.5 GHz 5G? nope.

You know what killed Clearwire. Price of backhaul and real estate prices with minimal uptake for broadband adoption. If Clear

^ This.

The bottom line = Wireline investment. They can keep monkeying around with these wireless ideas and overall/majority failures that cost a boat load of money to even test (ATT tested in my state... and the results were absolutely horrid and expensive).

Telco = Deploy Fiber.. to the Premise. Period, no more discussion -- This is their most profitable and reliable path forward. Nothing comes close for a list of reasons I could go on about for pages upon pages.

Cable - Mix some Fiber to premise in.. but remain mostly Coax/HFC -- and push out D3.1 -- It's already capable of Gigabit both ways and higher without echo cancellation. Push it even harder as Echo Cancellation is standardized into equipment to double RF bandwidth and make it symmetrical 'by default' turning Cable effectively into FIber (sort of by proxy).

Everyone else -- Continue your smaller projects/companies of Gigabit speeds -- it adds up in aggregate. As the country becomes more and more "Gigabit capable"the IPData/Internet will grow/evolve/improve.

Vchat20
Landing is the REAL challenge
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join:2003-09-16
Columbus, OH

4 recommendations

Vchat20 to whfsdude

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to whfsdude
Don't forget the grand-daddy issue of them all: NIMBY. When you start requiring much more denser deployment, someone's going to bitch somewhere.
shanghaista
join:2014-08-03
Canton, MA

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shanghaista to dslwanter

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to dslwanter
Except if everyone were to use their cell tether (or even direct phone usage) as their primary internet source, the network strain would not hold the same speeds/ping.

It's good right now as a supplement, but I'm skeptical the current generation can support more widespread usage. Jury's still out on whatever the heck 5G is.

dslwanter
20 years on this site
Premium Member
join:2002-12-16
Mineral Ridge, OH

dslwanter

Premium Member

Re: Certainly Improving

According to this, 13% are already there.
elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA

elray

Member

Re: Certainly Improving

said by dslwanter:

According to this, 13% are already there.

The 13% are not tethering, or consuming massive amounts of data on their phones.
They are rationally choosing not to pay two bills, in a world where everything they do online is on a [tiny] touch-screen.

In other news, the American Optometric Association projects 13% revenue growth for its members...

Packeteers
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Packeteers

Premium Member

it's happening

I have friends like this - one only uses a 32" TV for his PS3, another will be glued to her smartphone even while in a room with people watching TV.

There is a cost to doing this - most friends who live on their smartphones pay extra for all their content (apps, games, music, books, video) they rarely pirate.

I do everything on my PC (except voice calls) and consume most of my broadband bandwidth in order to get at all the "free" content the web can "safely" and anonymously provide.
Ostracus
join:2011-09-05
Henderson, KY

Ostracus

Member

Re: it's happening

"Hidden cost"? Is that like how a salary is a "hidden cost" to one's employer?

Anon0dd9f
@charter.com

Anon0dd9f to Packeteers

Anon

to Packeteers
said by Packeteers:

I have friends like this - one only uses a 32" TV for his PS3, another will be glued to her smartphone even while in a room with people watching TV.

There is a cost to doing this - most friends who live on their smartphones pay extra for all their content (apps, games, music, books, video) they rarely pirate.

I do everything on my PC (except voice calls) and consume most of my broadband bandwidth in order to get at all the "free" content the web can "safely" and anonymously provide.

Get REAL internet.

Anon90114
@comcast.net

Anon90114 to Packeteers

Anon

to Packeteers
said by Packeteers:

I have friends like this - one only uses a 32" TV for his PS3, another will be glued to her smartphone even while in a room with people watching TV.

There is a cost to doing this - most friends who live on their smartphones pay extra for all their content (apps, games, music, books, video) they rarely pirate.

I do everything on my PC (except voice calls) and consume most of my broadband bandwidth in order to get at all the "free" content the web can "safely" and anonymously provide.

Funny, I find it is easier to get more free stuff via mobile

mike340t
Compu-Global Hyper-Mega Net
join:2000-12-27
Murfreesboro, TN

mike340t

Member

Yeah I couldn't..

With all my "smart things", using just mobile will be impossible.. Forget about kids... Tablets, Laptops, computers and TV's in every room.. Gaming would suck too. Internet is probably the cheapest most used thing I pay for monthly after content subscriptions...

SysOp
join:2001-04-18
Atlanta, GA

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SysOp

Member

I can come up with percentages too!

I'm getting to the point to where I tune out these "studies" or "reports" that show a % of all americans everywhere, are doing whatever, based on whatever, just by asking a few people though an online quiz or other very small random group of test subjects.

firephoto
Truth and reality matters
Premium Member
join:2003-03-18
Brewster, WA

firephoto

Premium Member

Re: I can come up with percentages too!

said by SysOp:

I'm getting to the point to where I tune out these "studies" or "reports" that show a % of all americans everywhere, are doing whatever, based on whatever, just by asking a few people though an online quiz or other very small random group of test subjects.

You mean this report that implies it might be trendy to go smartphone only and only pay our hard earned money to mobile carriers with data caps and location snooping and data manipulation ... it might not be true??!!?



Seriously, did the idiots that always make apps that are smartphone only kick in a weeks coffee money for this study?
Joe Sixpack
join:2015-03-27

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Joe Sixpack

Member

I kinda know people who do this by choice.

I know a few people who use their phones for 99% of their internet use.. I don't know anyone who has it as their sole device though.

I can't understand it.. phablets or not I could never see me abandoning my desktop and laptops for a phone or tablet only existence.

I love my phone when im in the store and in the car, but I never found my phone or tablet to be useful for anything other then consuming entertainment and looking up stuff online.

besides pictures it's pretty difficult (I find) to create anything without a keyboard and mouse.
I know some people are ditching everything for their one and only phone but I can't ever see doing that.

desktop, laptop, tablet, phone, I like'em all but they all have their place, none of them are killing each other.. at least in my world.

IowaCowboy
Lost in the Supermarket
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA

IowaCowboy

Premium Member

I rarely use a computer

I rarely use a computer and use my iPhone for most of my web surfing and e-mail. But I have so many web connected gadgets in the house (smart home devices, cameras, game consoles) and my mother that still uses a desktop computer (and Yahoo e-mail) so I still have the need for a home internet connection.

cork1958
Cork
Premium Member
join:2000-02-26

cork1958

Premium Member

Re: I rarely use a computer

said by IowaCowboy:

I rarely use a computer and use my iPhone for most of my web surfing and e-mail.

Man, you must have that phone glued to your fore head on a selfie stick then as much as I see you posting here!

I couldn't and wouldn't want to be anything like that, ever! I'll use my laptops and PC's for doing my computing stuff, which isn't very much either.