In developing nations, AFFORDABILITY AND DISCRETIONARY INCOME ARE FUNDAMENTAL DETERMINING FACTORS FOR BEING CONNECTED. Consider the statistics: But even in developed markets, Among the smartphone-dependent the ability to pay for connectivity population of the United States, 51 is neither a given nor factored into percent of users report exceeding household budgets. Consumers their mobile plan’s data allowance; are very conscious of their data among those people, 15 percent say allowances and turn to wifi as they “frequently” tap out of data. often as possible. It’s safe to conclude that restrictive allowances are a significant bottleneck for people who rely heavily on mobile-data usage. About 20 percent of smartphone users say they considered it a financial burden. 16