Will real mobile broadband users please stand up

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 12 January 2011 17:06

Opinion and Analysis

A great number of the mobile phones on the market today are capable of accessing the Internet. But does that make everyone who owns one 'a mobile broadband subscriber'? With widely differing prognostications being bandied about it's time to bring some rigour to the issue.

The OECD, for example, does not have a category for a 'mobile broadband subscribers': they are embraced by 'wireless broadband' which covers satellite and terrestrial fixed wireless technologies and all types of mobile broadband services - dongles, handsets, etc.

When the OECD published its latest broadband stats last month it broke out wireless broadband users for the first time, and by its reckoning there were over 10 million of them in Australia at 30 June. Australia has few fixed wireless broadband customer yet that figure is way above the 3.46 million figure for mobile broadband subscribers from the ACMA for the same date, but the ACMA was counting only dedicated mobile broadband devices: inbuilt modems, datacards, dongles, WiFi/3G routers etc.

By the OECD's reckoning there were almost half a billion wireless broadband subscribers in its 29 member countries at 30 June Absent from that list is the whole of Asia with the exception of Korea and Japan.

That figure was well above the 294 million wired broadband services in OECD countries and puts global wireless broadband figures close the total for ALL broadband services being bandied around by some commentators.

For example, global market research firm In-Stat, estimated total broadband subscribers globally, including mobile, at the end of 2010 were only about 763 million and are expect to reach only about one billion by end 2011.

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