Americans Used More Than 1.1 Trillion Megabytes of Wireless Data Last Year

CTIA has released the latest data from its semi-annual wireless industry survey. It shows that the continued growth of LTE networks and corresponding strong sales for smartphones in the US have lead to mobile broadband usage more than doubling over the last year.

According to the group, U.S. mobile networks handled 1.16 trillion megabytes of data between July 2011 and June 2012 — a 104 percent increase over the 568 billion megabytes they handled over the same period a year earlier.

Texting was also up about 3 percent from 2.206 trillion messages in 2010-2011 to 2.273 trillion between 2011- 2012. Multimedia messages, however, were up 10.6 percent to 58.3 billion this year. There are currently about 22 million tablets in the wild, or 17 percent of all wireless connections. There's also been about a 10 percent boost in the number of pre-paid wireless customers.

"With the persistent increase in usage, this survey is another proof point for why our members need more spectrum to meet consumer demands," CTIA CEO Steve Largent said in a statement. "We appreciate the FCC's [notice of proposed rulemaking] on the incentive auction of broadcast television spectrum and hope that it's brought to market quickly so that our members may continue to innovate and invest in our nation's economy."

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