T-Mobile's average smartphone user consumes 760MB of data each month

T-Mobile's CTO Neville Ray broke out the slide projector at the NGNM Conference in San Francisco to show some interesting numbers. It seems that the average smartphone user on the nation's fourth largest carrier consumes 760MB of data a month. According to the slides that Ray showed the group, data usage on the carrier's pipeline has soared 146 times the amount used 5 years ago. Meanwhile, data speeds now move on T-Mobile's network 10 times faster than they did those five years earlier.

Of course, there are those power users who buy the faster phones to take advantage of, what else,  faster speeds. T-Mobile customers sporting a 42Mbps HSPA+ enabled handset like the HTC One S are averaging usage of 1.3GB of data a month. It is hard to believe, but back in 2009 the average T-Mobile customer used no more than 25MB a month which soared to 133MB monthly in 2010 and then 433MB last year.

The average T-Mobile smartphone user doesn't seem to use that much data, but when you consider that according to Cisco Systems' Virtual Network Index, the average U.S. smartphone used just 201MB of data in 2011, T-Mobile's smartphone customers seem like data hogs. When you add in Ericsson's monthly report which showed that globally, Apple iPhone and Android users gobbled up 350MB of data per month in the first quarter, T-Mobile customers look like out of control data fiends. Part of the problem is that T-Mobile customers get free mobile HotSpots.

Another interesting stat comes to us by way of  Chetan Sharma Consulting which says that while only 30% of Americans exceed 1GB in data usage each month, the most popular tiered data plans are 2GB and 3GB. And while Verizon's shared data plan will allow users to select a 1GB a month option, you will have to pay more for required unlimited voice and text message plans.

source: GIGaom