Swedish telecoms giant Ericsson is predicting that global mobile broadband subscriptions will double to 1 billion in 2011 and will maintain a high rate of growth thereafter, reaching 3.8 billion by 2015.
The market will be driven by the Asia Pacific region which will add 400 million users over the period, with North America and Europe adding 200 million apiece. The growing popularity of smartphones and tablets will shift consumer behaviour, with an ever-increasing demand for Internet access and media services, Ericsson stated.
Ericsson cites a TeliaSonera 4G subscriber survey, which found that 23 per cent watch more online TV and 46 per cent access the Web more often while on the move, as they make full use of the higher data speeds available. Global mobile data traffic continues to grow rapidly, with Ericsson announcing in August 2010 that it had tripled in just one year. Ericsson says that, due to increased speed and reduced latency, LTE networks enable video streaming which also attracts new professional users, such as TV broadcasters and public safety organizations.
For more:
- see this Ericsson release
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