Survey: Mobile data would go if household budgets are squeezed

According to a new survey from Strategy Analytics, [1]nearly half of Americans would cut out their mobile data service altogether if they were faced with a need to cut household spending. In comparison, just 10 percent said they would be willing to drop their wired broadband service to save money, while 12 percent would drop digital television service.

"Conventional wisdom seems to have dictated that people are so addicted to their mobile voice and data and that you'd really have to 'pry it from their cold, dead hands,'"' Ben Piper, director of the Strategy Analytics' multiplay market dynamics service, said in Network World. "This turns out not to be the case."

The survey, conducted this month, surveyed 1,110 household decision makers regarding their plans for spending in the coming year for different technology service, including broadband, digital TV, wireline voice, mobile voice and mobile data. Just one in five said they would eliminate wireline voice with nearly the same percentage saying the same about mobile voice if they were faced with household budgetary constraints. The bottom line: American consumers see mobile voice as more valuable than mobile data. Just one third said they would leave their mobile data service unchanged.

For more:
- see Network World [2]

Related articles:
Report: Lower-income Americans are turning to the iPhone
[3]Despite economy, smartphone market remains resilient [4]
Mobile broadband growth encouraging amid bad economy [5]