Mobile Broadband to Overtake Fixed Broadband in Near Future
Mobile broadband usage is expected to overtake that of fixed-line broadband in the near future, suggests a report published by Frost and Sullivan, the analyst firm.
The report titled “European Mobile Broadband Melee between 3G LTE and Mobile WiMAX”, estimates that by the year 2013 there would be nearly 22.4 million 3G LTE users. This prediction is based on a trend study carried out by the company, the results of which show that users this year are downloading 6-14 times more data from mobile broadband networks compared to last year. The report also shows that data download now averages around 5GB per month for mobile broadband users. It is widely expected that these figures are likely to grow rapidly over the next few years.
The firm predicts the onset of a technological revolution in mobile broadband in the form of both LTE and WiMAX. It also says that operators might shift to an open access system, wherein users would be able to connect their devices to any network, rather than being restricted to only one network.
The report also suggests that pricing of mobile broadband should be revisited and made more effective and simple (click for info on pay as you go mobile internet). Luke Thomas, programme manager at Frost & Sullivan, supported this stance by saying that the pricing of 3G LTE and mobile WiMAX should be more innovative to enable operators to stand out from the competition, and at the same time, it should be such that it is clear and easy for the users to understand.
He also said that the operators should make sure that they provide effective management to better control the user traffic. This, he said, they could do by using quality-of-service policies, by developing methods to provide prioritised access, and ensure flow-based handling.
