Tablets Will Reduce Smart Phone Data Demand, Ultimately

Life, and business or technology markets, rarely work out precisely as expected. Unexpected and unforeseen developments are common. Consider mobile data demand. There is little question that volumes of data consumed by smart phone owners will keep growing. The issue is how fast that growth occurs. 

And some might already argue that growth will not continue as strongly as some hope or fear, because demand will shift from smart phones to tablets, and from the mobile network to the fixed network, using local Wi-Fi. 

Tablets are different from mobile phones; they are portable rather than really mobile, as compared to "always-with-me devices," Forrester Research analyst Thomas Husson notes. 

The behaviors for which people use tablets are more similar to PC usage than mobile phone usage, Husson notes. And that is an important observation. 

For now, tablets are mostly being used as Wi-Fi-only devices, most frequently in the living room, next most frequently in the bedroom, and often as second-screen devices. From a network planner's perspective, that is important, as it means tablets drive fixed network consumption, not mobile network load. 

For the growing percentage of consumers who will own both a tablet and a smart phone, tablets get used within the home, and in ways more similar to use of PCs than phones. 

This will, over time, cannibalize the time spent on smart phones at home. And that has clear implications for network planners, as most studies suggest as much as much as half of mobile data usage occurs inside the home, where a tablet arguably provides a better experience.