Mobile networks will be offloaded

DECIPHERERS OF RUNES at ABI Research have predicted that mobile data offloading will triple in the next five years.

Soothsayers at the firm have been studying tea leaves and the market and have come to the conclusion that as the amount of wireless data grows, so too will the methods that operators use to shrink it down and avoid bandwidth congestion.

As it stands, about 16 per cent of mobile data is diverted off from the mobile networks in favour of other transports, but according to ABI this will rocket up to 48 per cent by 2015. This means that traffic, which is likely to grow by a factor of 30, will be split almost half and half between wireless and wired connections.

How this tallies with Google's and AT&T's view that wired and wireless connections are two different things is up for debate. But the definition of what is wired and what is not could be one of the deciding factors in the growing net neutrality debate that has been kicked off following Google's recent stalking horse deal with Verizon that apparently was intended to frame US Federal Communications Commission regulation.

In response to criticism for their part in proposing to throw Internet and mobile users to the telecom wolves, the firms argued that the wireless Internet has nothing to do with the wired Internet and net neutrality, and thus does not need protecting.

"It's now day four of the aftermath of the Verizon-Google net neutrality announcement and the number of voices weighing in on the matter continues to grow," said the firm in an almost tearful blog post. "There is much misinformation out there about this issue, as well as a genuine lack of understanding [about] wireless networks."

There sure is. µ