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Siri probably isn't the bandwidth hog the WaPo warned you about

by Mel Martin Jan 27th 2012 at 7:00PM

Update: Former Siri director responds to the Washington Post story. Reuters was the original source of the error around Siri bandwidth usage.

"How Siri is ruining your cellphone service." That's the searing headline from the Washington Post in an article by Paul Farhi. Farhi claims that "Siri's dirty little secret is that she's a bandwidth guzzler, the digital equivalent of a 10-miles-per-gallon Hummer H1."

Where's he coming up with this? Apparently, the "Siri eats bandwidth" claim is based on a study by Arieso that reports that iPhone 4S owners consume twice as much cellular data as iPhone 4 users and 3 times as much as iPhone 3G users. Recent Android phones are also chewing up twice as much data as the iPhone 3G, while 3G and 4G mobile hotspots are by far the biggest download hogs (26x the baseline).

At least in the press release summary of the study, however, there's no mention of Siri at all; just the increased usage for the 4S, which just happens to support a faster download standard on AT&T's network. Our sister site Engadget helped put that study in perspective by pointing out that Arieso has a vested interest in the results of the research. We've asked for a full copy of the report to see what, if any, linkage there is between Siri and data volume.

[Ars Technica did a round of testing when the iPhone 4S came out, and the results showed that an average Siri user might add just 10MB of data consumption per month due to voice queries. Considering that the high-end AT&T data plan provides two gigabytes of traffic, that 10MB would represent only 0.5% of the full allocation, or 1% of a half-used allowance -- unlikely in the extreme to result in a doubling of data usage. –Ed.]

If we take the study at face value, though, why more data on the 4S? The likely answer hasn't much to do with Siri and a lot more to do with the profile of the iPhone 4S buyer.

The people who buy the latest phone are also the power users who take the most advantage of their devices. We've seen that happen before with new technology, and once people stop amazing themselves and their friends, the consumption of bandwidth drops off. I haven't seen any convincing data that says the iPhone 4S inherently uses more data than an iPhone 4, and iOS 5 iCloud features, also available on the iPhone 4 and 3GS, probably play a role in increased bandwidth use.

As for Siri, most of the heavy lifting goes on at the Apple servers, where your query is translated into data and then sent back to your phone in a quick burst. Streaming radio, Netflix and a host of other apps can use way more bandwidth, and they are utilizing the network for minutes or hours at a time, not seconds.

Of course Siri is on every iPhone 4S, so it is getting used more than some 3rd-party apps, but it's hard to believe that the average user doing perhaps 2-3 queries a day is destroying our cellular infrastructure. GigaOm this morning also poured cold water on the Post story, and there will probably be more to come.

One thing is for sure. Smartphones, and the iPhone in particular, are using more data than the dumb phones of old. Compare that to the internet connections in our homes, where Netflix has been identified as the biggest user of bandwidth in the U.S. It's up the internet providers, both wired and wireless, to keep growing their networks so they can continue to charge those premium rates; it's also up to Washington regulators and cellular carriers to make efficient use of bandwidth and future spectrum technologies.

Readers, are you heavy Siri users, and are you destroying our cellular networks?



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Update: Former Siri director responds to the Washington Post story. Reuters was the original source of the error around Siri bandwidth...
 

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February 03 2012 at 8:48 PM Report abuse -1 rate up rate down Reply
puhsitch

Forget what you learned in stats class...when it comes to writing good linkbait, correlation always implies causation. ALWAYS.

January 28 2012 at 10:34 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Roger

"The people who buy the latest phone are also the power users who take the most advantage of their devices. "

Excellent point! This reminds me of breathless automobile accident surveys that show that Cameros and Mustangs get into a lot more accidents than Volvo station wagons!

January 28 2012 at 5:03 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mark Johnson

Exactly! Thanks for pointing out the obvious flaw in all these Siri bandwidth stories. Its just that people who use iPhone the most all went out and upgraded to 4S because they use the phone the most. Obviously.

January 28 2012 at 2:04 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
eremiah.nilsson@gmai

Of course you use more bandwidth; just the part with taking a photo and send it to iCloud should be enough.

take a picture and email it in original size - the camera in 4s uses "heavier" pictures....
More apps today are net connected than earlier.

January 28 2012 at 9:59 AM Report abuse -1 rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to eremiah.nilsson@gmai's comment
Rdnymllnsktr

Photo stream only works on WiFi.

January 28 2012 at 4:04 PM Report abuse +1 rate up rate down Reply
Oliver Kot

I still use Siri all the time. i use it to dictate a lot of messages, or set alarms, and after jailbreaking my phone, I even use it to toggle Wi-Fi and brightness levels. I never was a fan of the weather ever, but I actually asked Siri what the weather is all the time now. I'm not sure if I'm considered a Siri power user, But I definitely use it all the time. I have found it to be incredibly useful. In fact I'm using Siri to dictate this very message right now. it's so accurate!

January 28 2012 at 9:14 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Bill Vincent

I'm no fan of the iPhone, (They're pretty, but other phones are far more useful) but I was extremely skeptical of the WaPo article. There was too little detail, and far too many questions left unanswered. I'm well aware of how Siri functions, so I couldn't fathom how his finding could be accurate. Your article pleases me.

The last paragraph here brings up a growing problem. With data usage increasing by the day, and thousands of mobile devices being activated by the day, and more apps and services requiring bandwidth coming out by the minute, why is net access getting more and more expensive? All-you-can-eats are virtually gone, carriers are raising prices on packages, USA home internet service costs are among the highest in the world for the speed and staying there, data caps abound. There has to be a reckoning point soon. The rising cost of data is going to collide with the demand for it, and something is going to break.

January 27 2012 at 11:33 PM Report abuse -1 rate up rate down Reply
Cuno84

Mel, this is a great article. I'm impressed by your rational look at the claims and realizing the "science" isn't there to support them. Your suggestion that the heavy users are really what's causing surge in data, is probably spot on. I'm a very heavy data user, and that's exactly why I buy each iPhone release, I want the most powerful option. I have seen no surge in my data usage between the 4 and 4s.

January 27 2012 at 9:35 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Vera Comment

37kb per.. oh the humanity.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/11/how-data-heavy-is-siri-on-an-iphone-4s-ars-investigates.ars

We performed six tasks that would be considered to be local tasks. These queries included things like, "Set an alarm for 3 hours from now," "Make an appointment for 2pm on Friday" (and then telling Siri to cancel the task), "Remind me to file expense reports when I get home," and "What is the contact info for Ars Technica?"

These tasks added up to a total of 220KB of data usage, or an average of 36.7KB per query. The actual numbers ranged from 60KB down to 18KB, and we believe this is correlated to the complexity of the specific query and language we used to perform it.

January 27 2012 at 9:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Vera Comment's comment
Michael

Vera, thanks for pointing that out -- we've linked it in the post.

January 30 2012 at 11:02 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
mikehild

After the initial "let's try and see what weird responses I get" phase or showing it to others, I rarely use Siri. Maybe once or twice a week tops.

January 27 2012 at 7:25 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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