100, 150, 200 or 250 GB, more and more plans offer generous mobile data envelopes. Only, do we really need so many gigas available? The latest Arcep report on the communications market in France proves that very few users exhaust their monthly quota.
Increasing the amount of mobile data is the technique used by operators for years to increase the price of packages by a few euros. The latest case to date, Bouygues Telecom, which added 3 euros to the invoice for certain offers, in exchange for 30 GB extra.
Of course, the operator is not the only one to engage in this kind of practice. Moreover, it suffices to look at the formulas of Orange, Free, SFR and Bouygues to see a constant increase in the quantity of data offered with the packages.
The quantity of dates are exploding in the packages
At Orange, the non-binding packages start with a ridiculous envelope of 100 MB, to go to 10 and 20 GB before to make a significant gap at 100 and 170 GB. At Free, the finding is even more obvious on offers reserved for non-Freebox subscribers.
Apart from its famous €2 package with only 50 MB of mobile data, we go directly to offers with huge data envelopes of 110 GB (€12.99/month) and 210 GB (€19.99/month).
However, do the French really need such a large amount of mobile data? Arcep’s latest report on the communications market proves that very few users exhaust their monthly quota.
Also read: Orange, Bouygues, SFR and Free are struggling to find customers, their mobile offers are less popular
The French are content for the most part with 15 GB per month
Indeed, we learn in this study that traffic per active 4G customer amounts to only 15 GB per month! This still represents an increase of 2.2 GB in one year and per subscriber. Despite this increase in average user consumption, the report confirms that the majority of subscribers would actually be content with an envelope of 20 GB per month.
And unfortunately, it is clear that there are very few offers on the market that offer a quantity of data able to correspond to this average. There is Red by SFR with a no-commitment package at €9.99/month with 40 GB of data, and B&You with a similar offer (40 GB for €9.99/month). At Orange, there is a 40 GB offer, but it is a limited formula billed at €28.99/month subject to a 24-month commitment.
Source: Arcep