One per cent of users eat half of all mobile data

Ruining it for the rest of us with their streaming and voice searching.

A new report from Arieso looked at usage patterns of at least 1,000 phones, and says these 'extreme' users are becoming even more extreme, and that they will make the data crunch that so worries operators even worse in 2012.

The study found that just one per rcent of subscribers consume half of all downloaded data, and three per cent  80 per cent of all data, according to Flanagan.

The escalation in smartphone sophistication is driving up the consumption of data to dramatic new levels. It says iPhone 4S users demand three times as much data as iPhone 3G users and twice as much as iPhone 4 users, thanks to data hungry features such as Siri and iCloud.

Google Nexus One users also eat twice as much data as iPhone 3G users.

It's all a bit of a nightmare for the operators. Arieso's CTO Michael Flanagan reckons they need to make better use of smaller base stations and bring them closer to users.