Some impressive numbers here from the CTIA’s Semi-Annual Wireless Industry Survey. There are now more than 276 million wireless users in the U.S., which is almost 14 million more subscribers that there were at this point last year. (Seriously, is there anyone in America who doesn’t have their own phone in their pocket or purse these days?) More amazing is the seemingly never-ending explosive growth of text messaging. The CTIA report that:
text messaging continues to be enormously popular, with more than 740 billion text messages carried on carriers’ networks during the first half of 2009—breaking down to 4.1 billion messages per day. That’s nearly double the number from last year, when only 385 billion text messages were reported for the first half of 2008. Wireless subscribers are also sending more pictures and other multi-media messages with their mobile devices—more than 10.3 billion MMS messages were reported for the first half of 2009, up from 4.7 billion in mid-year 2008.
Most of us probably hadn’t even sent one text message ten years ago. And now there 4.1 billion of the suckers flying off our phones every day. That is astonishing.
And we’re still gabbing plenty, too. “[W]ireless customers have already used more than 1.1 trillion minutes in the first half of 2009—breaking down to 6.4 billion minutes-of-use per day.” As the Grim Reaper said in Monty Python’s “Meaning of Life“… “You always talk, you Americans. You talk and you talk..”
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.