Friday, May 30, 2008

Are You Average?

The only public figures available for how many minutes we talk on cell phones are from the FCC, and those are a bit dated. But with those figures we can estimate that over the past year, the average cellular customer used 720 minutes per month. This includes "anytime", "night & weekend" and "mobile to mobile" minutes. These figures don't include text messages and only include data if it is paid for by the minute.

This number brings to mind the range of usage of cellular customers. We have heard so much of "power" users who can benefit from "unlimited" plans, but their usage is certainly offset by some who use very few minutes. Most of our acquaintances use less than the average amount, although some use lots of data time. But we're all over 25, close to being 'over the hill'.

More of my contacts now communicate through email instead of the phone, and my cellular usage has actually dropped over the past few years while my email access through cellular has been increasing. I use actual minutes to access email and the loss of minutes making phone calls has been offset by a corresponding increase in reading email. Yin & Yang...the world seems to be in balance. As we allow more cell phone usage into our lives, we should assume we will grow beyond the 7 minute yearly increase we have today, especially as some of us cut the wire line.

Where do you fit in? I bet none of our readers are "average". You either use a lot more or a lot less, and I also bet the wireless carriers still don't really offer a plan that fits you best. They are very clever that way, because they also know that few of us are "average."

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