With speeds like that carrier will need to bring back unlimited ppl will burn through that so fast.
Sent from my DROID RAZR MAXX HD using Droid Forums
That's an interesting observation. True that if speeds are faster the web pages will load quicker, and that could translate into more surfing from the phone due to its faster access, however I think there's a point where using the web directly maxes out, and it becomes more what is using the web on behalf of you in the background that takes the lead in data consumption. I mean, to watch a move at 4G or at the speeds they're talking about will change nothing...the movie will still be the same amount of data, and it will consume that amount of data over the same +/- 2 hour timeframe. What will change is the reduced (or eliminated), stutters and pixelation that happens when data isn't being transmitted in sufficient rate of speed. Of course, what could also ultimately change here is the type of quality of video, perhaps moving from 720P to 1080P, or from there to 4K. Again, I think the quality maxes out as well given the screen size and resolution and what the eye can perceive as quality (resolution versus the eye's ability to differentiate between HD and 4K at those screen sizes).
In other words, unless the user is directly downloading numerous movies for later viewing or archiving, or deliberately collecting large quantities of MP3 or lower to no-compression audio, or they are in some other way directly requesting large amounts of data for some purpose (in which case they can consume much larger quantities over the same time-frame and therefore may be more aggressive in doing so), they will likely use about the same on this new faster service as they are on 4G now. They'll take the same number of photos and videos, which will be stored to the cloud in the same amount of data transmission - faster, yes, but the same number of bits...
Of course, as data becomes faster (and hopefully cheaper), the app designers will likely take more and more advantage of this and start more aggressively migrating portions (or in some cases all), of their app processes to the cloud instead, and eventually the smartphone will operate more like a dumb terminal to achieve the best balance between speed and responsiveness, as well as to limit the amount of data actually stored on the device with its finite storage capacity. Also, games would likely become even more realistic and the background information (textures, colors, definition, realism), would become an even greater priority, which would ultimately consume more transmission data. I could see the backdrops and scenery of video games moving from raster and vector imagery and more to real video of actual physical locations, and that video data being streamed from cloud servers to the phone rather than being created on-board, which would of course consume massively more data, but be less intensive for the phone and processor(s)/coprocessor(s) to reproduce.
Where I see the increased speed *(beyond what we already have which is suitably fast now), affecting the actual quantity of data - increasing the overall quantity is mostly in the background services such as Facebook, Twitter, other social media (which is becoming more and more dynamic with videos and high resolution photos), and more intensive, more detailed imagery in navigation, more interaction with the surroundings, such as when you're traveling and near a store, and the store advertisement is sent to you based on your location, and other things of that nature.
