Mobile users clam up, use more data, survey shows

Mobile users in North America are hanging up and using email, text or social networking at a rapid pace, according to a survey by PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

Postpaid subscribers, who pay a regular bill for mobile service at the end of each month, spent an average of 673 minutes per month talking on the phone in the year as of June 30, 2012. That was down from 714 minutes per month a year earlier, while those same subscribers' monthly data use grew from 548MB to 694MB, according to a PwC survey of North American mobile operators. Cost-conscious consumers finally joining the mobile revolution is probably one reason for the fall in talk minutes, PwC said, but data services are definitely on the rise. Customers using new, faster networks are consuming 700% more data than the average subscriber. The average user of these so-called mobile broadband networks used about 4.8GB of data per month as of June 2012, up from about 3.6GB the previous June.