Mobile broadband uptake continues to soar

MOBILE BROADBAND usage continues to soar with the number of connections increasing by nearly two-thirds in the last year, according to figures from the GSM Association.

According to the report from Wireless Intelligence, more than nine million new HSPA connections are being added globally every month, compared to 5.5 million per month a year ago, with Europe and Asia Pacific each accounting for around a third of these.

"HSPA technology continues its phenomenal growth as thousands of operators, vendors, application and service providers back the technology, ensuring the presence of a vibrant and competitive ecosystem," said Dan Warren, director of Technology at the GSMA.

With mobile data technologies such as HSPA+, Wimax and LTE on the horizon, Warren doesn't see this trend abating any time soon.

"These next generation network technologies will continue to deliver increased data speeds and enable mobile operators to constantly improve service experience by delivering the latest, feature rich multimedia applications to their customers," he added.

The research estimates that another 27 million HSPA connections will be added by the end of the year, with regions such as Africa, Eastern Europe and the Americas set to see the biggest growth. There are currently 321 HSPA networks across 120 countries worldwide, and 285 of these networks are commercially live, supporting more than 167.5 million connections.

It's not just the number of connections that is rising, but the amount of data transferred as well. Thanks to the increased adoption of smartphones and the proliferation of 3G dongles and similar mobile data connections, mobile operators around the world are seeing huge growth in the amount of mobile data traffic across their networks.

It is predicted that mobile devices will send and receive more data in one month by 2014 than in all of 2008.

This data deluge is helping spur the advancement of next generation mobile data access technology. There are now 56 HSPA+ networks in existence globally, with 28 commercially live. Although not as far along, LTE is also gaining traction, with 50 mobile operators worldwide already having committed to plans, trials or deployments, while the first commercial LTE networks are expected to be rolled out next year.

"There are several key questions operators need to address when building a business case for HSPA+ and/or LTE migration," explained Warren.

"The answers to these questions will determine whether or not they choose to deploy HSPA+ first or move straight to LTE. The one certainty is that nearly all operators globally are embracing the GSM family of technologies, in order to meet the rapidly increasing demand for mobile broadband services on a range of different devices."

A recent related report from Mobilesquared predicts that mobile internet connections will surpass fixed line connections by 2011. µ