Users Younger than 35 are "Talking" Less than in 2009

Generally speaking, younger mobile users are spending less time talking on their mobiles in 2010 than they did in 2009.

Users 35 to 54 talk about as much as they did in 2009. Users 55 and older seem to be talking more in 2010 than they did in 2009.

As a rule, we can probably account for the trends by assuming younger users find texting more efficient than voice communications for many tasks, and that they therefore are substituting text for voice.

Older users might be finding they are more comfortable with mobile voice, or that the cost of doing so has fallen, and therefore are using it more. Also, some portion of the increase likely is driven by an increased volume of inbound calls to their mobiles.

UCalling Yesterday, Texting Today, Using Apps Tomorrow

If it seems like American teens are texting all the time, it’s probably because on average they’re sending or receiving 3,339 texts a month. That’s more than six per every hour they’re awake, and an eight percent jump from last year.

Using recent data from monthly cell phone bills of more than 60,000 mobile subscribers as well as survey data from over 3,000 teens, The Nielsen Company analyzed mobile usage data among teens in the United States for the second quarter of 2010 (April 2010 – June 2010).

No one texts more than teens (age 13-17), especially teen females, who send and receive an average of 4,050 texts per month. Teen males also outpace other male age groups, sending and receiving an average of 2,539 texts. Young adults (age 18-24) come in a distant second, exchanging 1,630 texts per month (a comparatively meager three texts per hour).

The undeniable area of growth is in data usage: 94 percent of teen subscribers self-identify as advanced data users, turning to their cellphones for messaging, Internet, multimedia, gaming, and other activities like downloads.

While teen usage does not reach levels of activity seen by young adults, it has increased substantially compared to the second quarter of 2009, from 14 MBytes to 62 MBytes.

U.S. Teen Mobile Report: Calling Yesterday, Texting Today, Using Apps Tomorrow

Broadband Penetration 48% in EC

With the caveat that there are wide variances between countries, broadband access services are used by about 48 percent of European Union households, the European Commission reports.

On average, household computer access has increased by seven percentage points to 64 percent of households. However, there is considerable country variation, the greatest incidence of household computer access is in the Netherlands (92%), Denmark
(87%) and Sweden (87%), while the lowest incidence is in Bulgaria (37%) and Romania (42%).

Over half of EU households have Internet access (57%), including both dial-up and broadband. Generally speaking, broadband access mirrors PC ownership. The Netherlands (89%), Denmark (85%) and Sweden (85%) exhibit the highest incidence of household Internet access and Bulgaria (35%) and Romania (31%) have the lowest rates of PC ownership.

About 48 percent of EC homes now use broadband, while seven percent use narrowband. By way of comparison, most surveys of U.S. broadband use suggest 60 to 65 percent of U.S. homes use broadband. The FCC recently has suggested 62 percent broadband uptake, while US Telecom uses a figure of 67 percent. Overall, including dial-up access and primary use outside the home, US Telecom says U.S. Internet access reaches 78 percent of homes.

What is different in Europe is the prevalence of telephone network connections, compared to use of cable modems. On average, most (62%) use an ADSL (telco) connection to access the Internet. In comparison, relatively few use the cable network (15%) to access the Internet,
which is the next most common connection type.

However, in Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Slovakia more connect using the cable TV network than an ADSL connection.

Observers often note that some areas of the United States do not have any fixed-line access. In the EC countries, about 16 percent of respondents say they cannot buy broadband from any fixed-line providers in their areas.

Still, about 43 percent of EC households report they do not buy broadband access service. The majority of those without access claim that it is because no one in the home is interested in the Internet (58%). However, the various costs associated with the Internet are also cited as obstacles to access, although to a lower extent (19%).

Overall, computer access in the home is increasing across the EU; the proportion of households having a computer has increased by seven percentage points on average.

Almost two thirds of EU households have a computer. On average, computer ownership is greater in the countries that are long-time members of the EU, with two thirds (66%) of households having a computer. Computer ownership is lower among countries that have joined the EU more recently (53%).

The greatest incidence of computers in home is in the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden, where about nine out of ten households have a computer. Conversely, the lowest incidence is in Bulgaria and Romania where the proportion with a computer in home is less than half that in the Netherlands, Denmark or Sweden.

read the report here

Enterprise Execs Would Rather Lose Phone Than Data Services

An admittedly non-scientific survey of 130 attendees of an IP Expo showed that 65 percent agreed an IP outage would cause most damage to their businesses than a phone system outage.

If the local utility company accidently hacked through their phone lines, it would upset 21 percent but would not bring the company to a virtual standstill.

IP Expo: Take My Phone But Leave My Network Alone

EU mobile-only households about same as U.S. levels

About 98 percent of EU households have access to a telephone and an increasing proportion of households (87 percent) have access to a mobile phone. About 25 percent of respondents say they use only a mobile phone and have no fixed phone line. That is roughly in line with reported U.S. households that only use mobile for voice.

read the full study here.

read a summary here

How Safe Is Verizon's Dividend?

Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett questions Verizon’s ability to maintain its current dividend level.

Verizon soon will be forced to start paying dividends to Vodafone which owns 45 percent of their Verizon Wireless joint venture.

That means diverting cash from present uses (Verizon dividends) to alternative uses (paying dividends to Vodafone).

None of that might seem too important to an end user of Verizon's services, but executives always have to balance investment in networks, marketing, dividend payments and lots of other potential uses of cash.

Less cash means harder choices, and some of those choices could reverberate in the network investment area.

How Safe Is Verizon's Dividend?

Social CEOs?

In a new study, global public relations firm Weber Shandwick found that the majority of CEOs from the world’s largest companies—64 percent—are not using social media to engage online with external stakeholders.

“Strong evidence exists that CEOs are not silent in these turbulent times. They are extensively quoted in the business press, frequently deliver keynote speeches at conferences and participate in business school forums. But when it comes to digital engagement externally, CEOs are not yet fully socialized, often with good reason,” said Leslie Gaines-Ross, Weber Shandwick’s chief reputation strategist and online reputation expert.

That probably makes sense. If you are the CEO of one of the world's largest 50 companies, you have lots of people who can handle those sorts of duties, while at the same time avoiding the risk of infringing some regulatory rule or another, or going "off message."

64 Percent of the World’s Largest Company CEOs are Not Social Online