Smartphone Data Consumption Climbs 100% to 350%

The median smart phone user data consumption has increased from 40 MBytes per month to 137 MBytes a month, an increase of 350 percent. The 80th percentile user is using twice as much data as a year ago.

(Click image for larger view)

At the same time, smartphone ownership has roughly doubled in the same time period. So you are looking at a four- to seven-fold increase is data usage.

As a general rule, one could rightly conclude that truly "unlimited" service plans cannot be offered at low prices in such an environment. There is of course an obvious model for users who require such plans: higher prices more akin to business plans.

The data tsunami, and why Sprint increased its data charges - FierceWireless