Chetan Sharma Consulting has calculated that overall US mobile subscription penetration has reached 95%.
When you subtract people that are younger than 6 years old, this figure surpasses 100%. Overall, the U.S. wireless industry grew 6% in Q2 2010 alone and 22% year over year.
At the end of June 2010, the average U.S. subscriber consumes approximately 230 MB of data per month, up 50 percent over the end of 2009, with smartphones now making up 31 percent of all addressable devices. Data presently accounts for 31 percent of operator ARPU.
The top three carriers, AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint, each ended Q2 2010 with over 30% of revenue coming from data services. T-Mobile trailed slightly behind the big three with 25% of its revenue from data. Data revenues were $13.2 billion in Q2 2010.
With the mass deployment of HSPA+, WiMAX and soon LTE, the US is pioneering broadband business practices.
How it will work out for customers and operators remains to be seen. Perhaps Verizon and AT&T will deploy their billions in AWS frequencies they’ve been sitting on for the last few years.
AT&T, for example, spent more than $10 billion for currently unused 700 MHz and AWS spectrum – all the while pleading spectrum scarcity. It appears as if AT&T and Verizon are eliminating competitors by buying up spectrum. Then they let it sit unused.
Related Dailywireless articles include; Phoney Spectrum Scarcity, US Wireless Business: Good Margins, Clearwire to Test LTE, Cheat Sheet for Cellco Financials, WiMAX in More Cities, LTE Plans Leaked, Sprint Nextel: LTE/WiMAX Double Header?, Denmark Getting LTE, Qualcomm Gets Indian Partners, India’s Broadband Auction: It’s Done, 4G Auction in UK by 2011, AT&T Data Caps Extend to Femtocells, AT&T’s New Data Plans, T-Mobile: Now HSPA+ Coverage for 75M, Public Safety: Show Us The Money, Clear: No Limits, FCC to Okay $2.3B AT&T Deal, Cellcos: One Thing – Bandwidth, T-Mobile Eyeing Clear Spectrum, FCC Considers Auctioning Off TV Frequencies, FCC Okays Terrestrial LTE for SkyTerra, Battle of the Bands Goes to Congress, D-Block: It’s Done; Congress Pays
