Don't Discount the Dongle

Arieso, a location-based services infrastructure vendor, recently published a smartphone market study with several interesting insights into evolving user behavior as smartphone penetration ramps up in developed markets. Arieso thoroughly cataloged how and why average smartphone users are steadily increasing their data usage. The smartphone statistics in their press release were widely covered by Bloomberg and other media outlets, but one of the most revealing insights from their study was largely ignored: the amount of 3G dongle/modem traffic being generated compared to their iPhone 3GS benchmark. The reported usage numbers – reflecting increases since 2010 – tell the story:

Uplink data volumes:

• 3G Modems (various): 2654%
• HTC Desire S: 323%
• iPhone 4S: 320%

Downlink data volumes:

• 3G Modems (various): 2432%
• iPhone 4S: 276%
• Samsung Galaxy S: 199%

As the industry well knows, dongle-equipped laptops are consuming the elephant's share of mobile broadband traffic volume – Siri or not! Arieso's own data indicates this consumption approaches 10x the downlink volume of the iPhone 4S; the greediest 1% of users (over 65% of which are dongle users) now consume over half of downlink data volume. Yet the 276% increase among iPhone 4S users was regarded as the 'big news item' by most media outlets that ran the story. 3G dongles may not inspire headlines as readily as the latest smartphones, but for network operators this class of device represents a disproportionately clear and present problem.