Study Claims UK Mobile Users Wasting 3.4GB of Data Every Month

A new online survey of 5,603 UK adults has found that the average (mean) amount of Mobile Broadband data included with a Mobile plan is 5.9GB (GigaBytes) and yet subscribers only consume an average of 2.5GB, which suggests that some could save money by choosing a cheaper tariff.

The uSwitch.com commissioned study also noted that the issue is more noticeable among the younger generation, where the average 18-34 year old was found to be paying for 7.5GB of data but typically only using 3.6GB a month. Meanwhile 21% of mobile customers are unaware of how much allowance is included in their package and 26% of those with a data package don’t know what they use.

On top of that 36% of mobile customers who have a 3G or 4G data allowance built into their contracts don’t keep track of their mobile internet usage, although happily only 5% didn’t know they could do this at all or don’t know how to. Conversely, some 15% of those with a data package keep track of their data by either looking on provider apps, checking their phone settings (13%), viewing the online account page (9%) or checking their bill (8%).

The survey suggests that by “overpaying for data you don’t use or need, you’re not only wasting money, but you could unintentionally be cancelling out the value of any perks or freebies bundled into the tariff as an ‘extra’,” although it’s worth remembering that average usage may vary from month to month; consumers might buy more than they need for the sake of security.

However the results seem to overlook the complication of “all-you-can-eat” style tariffs offered by operators like Three UK, not to mention add-ons such as zero rated video streaming (e.g. “Go Binge“), which can enable people to use significantly more data than the plan may actually offer and often “at no extra cost“. This is before we touch on other plan styles, such as those with the ability to roll-over your data allowance to next month etc.

Lest we forget that a lot of mobile plans don’t offer data bundles in smaller increments, which can leave a big gap between the available tariffs (e.g. a SIM Only plan on EE can go from £14 per month for 1GB to £17 for 4GB and then £20 for 10GB etc.). Crucially gaps this big mean that many people may unavoidably end-up picking a plan that leaves them with a fair bit of data left over at the end of the month.

Suffice to say that the picture is far from simple. Finally, we should point out that Ofcom’s Connected Nations 2017 report (here) recently revealed that the average volume of data consumed per mobile subscriber is now 1.9GB per month, which is up from 1.3GB in 2016 and 0.9GB in 2015. Somewhat lower than uSwitch’s figure but not a million miles off.