Last year at TheNextWeb Startup Rally in Amsterdam, Guy Rosen, CEO of Onavo, introduced an application that he said can reduce a user's cellular data consumption by as much as 80%. Onavo is currently a free app that resides on an iPhone, iPad, or Android. Onavo promises to save users money by compressing their data and re-routing it through Onavo's cloud that is sourced from Amazon.
Rosen argues that unlimited data plans are not sustainable, with the trends showing that operators are moving to capped, tiered, and metered plans for data. He also states that carriers are supportive of new ideas and innovation because of the growth of cellular data. AT&T will continue to use their T-Mobile loss as justification for not providing a better network experience but even had the merger been approved, customers will still no longer have "unlimited cellular data," since it just isn’t sustainable.
Earlier in January, Onavo secured $10 million funding. Horizons Ventures, the private investment arm of Mr. Li Ka-shing, a major Hong Kong-based businessman, led the investment along with Motorola Mobility Ventures, the strategic equity investment arm of Motorola Mobility, Inc. (NYSE: MMI). So this data saving app maker has some serious money backing it.
Last month I decided to load the app and give it a whirl. What I found out didn’t surprise me. The app shows a "Session Details" page that breaks down how data is used, which is very helpful since it details what was used, how much and then how much Onavo saved the user. The monthly report provides details on usage, and this I think is pretty decent feedback to users wanting to know how much data is used and for what.
Onavo is currently available here for iPhones/iPads and here for Android. All versions have very good user ratings and I've only had to restart or re-install some service element that pauses a couple of times. Other than that, it runs in the background and I don't need to think too much about it. My data savings reads a paltry 7% and that's because I’m cognizant of available WiFi. Now my wife the data consumer, her Onavo savings reads much differently than my report. Her overall savings was 34%. When looking at the individual details of what she saved using apps for Maps she saved 3.82MB of 6.1MB (62%) and for the Web she saved 3.98MB of 11.18MB (35%).
While we did not go over our data plan limits, it's nice to know that we avoided paying the man for data overages. Since the summer of 2010, I've written about iPhone data usage and the many complaints of users about phantom data usage, privacy and whether or not there's relief in sight for users. Onavo seems to have hit upon a real key issue in at least identifying data usage and doing their magic to compress it and use less data via the carriers.
How much customers are willing to pay Onavo is yet to be known. The carriers are citing excessive demand on their networks, while some users are citing excessive charges for their data usage. While the Onavo app is cool, I still can't help but think that Apple, the app makers, and the carriers could pony up and do some innovating on their own. The cycle of not improving the process at the source or end device is just another excuse to keep billing the users for the inefficiencies of smartphones, tablets and radio waves. Onavo has convinced investors that existing technology is least efficient to use and most expensive to operate as intended. I wonder if customers will be convinced to pay Onavo for inefficiencies that come embedded in cellular gear, apps, and carriers' handling and billing practices.
