What factors affect your data consumption and can this change over time?

A Neuralitic customer recently performed a study that monitored subscribers’ data consumption volume over several months to gain a better understanding of the usage profiles.

The results of this study indicated that 31% of medium data consumption users migrated to either a high-user profile or a low-user profile within the span of three months. In other words, only 69% of subscribers in the medium-user profile had a stable consumption level over that three month period.

The question however, remains, what factors affect the migration from one consumption level to another? Interests and usage categorization capabilities in SevenFlow allowed this customer to dig deep into this data and find the answer. In the case of users migrating to a high-consumption profile, it was discovered that video downloading and streaming significantly increased the probability of migration, presenting an opportunity for mobile operators to offer tailored initiatives around these
services. In the case of users migrating to a low-user profile, the analysis revealed that subscribers operating on the Windows Mobile platform or who used Blackberry apps consumed less data month over month for the duration of this study.

What do you think? Beyond video streaming, what consumes your data? Have you switched to higher or lower data plans over the course of your contract term? What does this mean for mobile operators? Share your thoughts below in our comments section.