What’s Puzzling About These Wireless Broadband Usage Stats
by Russell Shaw
Internet and website traffic ressearch firm ComScore has just published a new study entitled, “Mobile Broadband Usage by Income Segment.†The study is of U.S.-based mobile broadband users only.
While the subject of mobile broadband is a bit fluid, much of ComScore’s take is based on a definition of mobile broadband as using EV-DO-type networks via your notebook. Or, as some cool AT&T Mobility advertisements that feature a man in the bushes with his Internet-accessing laptop at the ready saying, “the Internet cannot hide any more.â€
(At least he’s hiding in the bushes for an appropriate purpose).
OK, back to it. So I am looking at this ComScore study and I see a blip. Look carefully and you will see it too.
It would be a foregone conclusion that mobile users with the highest household income would be the most proportionately heavy wireless broadband users. I sense this is because of business travel reasons. And since business travel is often engaged in by execs whose companies want them to go on the road and will pay for those trips, it follows that such execs will be paid more.
If you accept that as presumptive fact, you might expect the proportion of wireless broadband users to decrease along with income range. But let’s look at the chart again. It seems that mobile travel3rs with annual HH income of $50-$74,999 seem to be more proportionately represented than those with HH $$ of $75,000-$99,999.
Theories: small sample size, or maybe there is something about those folks with Household incomes of $75,000 to $99,999 that renders them less mobile, and less eligible for subsidized business trips?
And maybe, the $50,000-$74,999 HH income crowd are entrepreneurs or mid-career types paying for their own wireless broadband and business trips to try and get ahead and ultimately reach the $100,000 a year income level?
