Global Mobile data traffic nearly triples in 1 year

Anthony Caruana
Friday, 13 August 2010 15:56

Your IT - Mobility

If you're wondering why your mobile carrier might struggle to deliver a reliable signal sometimes, it's a fair bet that they're constantly battling to keep up with our burgeoning mobile data use.

A recent study carried out by Ericsson has found that global mobile data traffic has almost trebled in the last year. Furthermore, they've found that mobile data grew 10 times faster than voice and mobile broadband adoption is accelerating with introduction of high performance networks.

Mobile broadband currently accounts for only 10% of total mobile subscriptions but a disproportionate and increasing majority of the traffic. Mobile data traffic continues to grow exponentially even after the historic cross over point in December 2009 when data first exceeded voice, as reported by Ericsson earlier this year

According to Ericsson statistics, global measured mobile data traffic stands at nearly 225,000 terabytes per month as of the second quarter of 2010. They estimate that there are over five billion mobile subscriptions worldwide and Ericsson envisions 50 billion connected devices by 2020.

'The growth and benefits of mobile broadband are undeniable,' said Ericsson's Senior Vice President, Chief Technology Officer & President of Ericsson Silicon Valley HÃ¥kan Eriksson.  'The business model for mobile broadband is becoming one of increasing profitability and competitive differentiation through superior quality of service. Operator's focus on end-to-end converged IP networks is key to addressing the dramatic traffic growth, while reducing costs and improving the user experience. For consumers, mobile broadband is transforming the way we communicate and prosper as a society.'

Ericsson's recently announced that they delivered their two millionth base station (out of an industry-wide installed base of five million) and supplies the majority of HSPA networks operating at speeds of 14.4 Mbps or higher and is the only supplier participating in all major 4G/LTE network builds currently underway.