Written by Matthew Lasar at Ars technica (http://arstechnica.com/author/matthew-lasar/) reports some figures by Cisco Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast (source here).
Here are the highlights:’[...]
- There will be 788 million mobile-only Internet users by 2015.
- Global mobile data traffic will increase by a factor of 26 by 2015.
- World mobile data grew by a factor of 2.6 in 2010 from 2009.
- Average smartphone usage doubled: 79 MB per month, up from 35 MB per month in 2009.
- Android operating system data use is rapidly catching up to the iPhone.
- In 2010 almost a third of smartphone traffic was offloaded onto fixed networks via dual-mode or Femtocells.
- Millions of people around the world have cell phones but no electricity, and by 2015 a majority in the Middle East and Southeast Asia will live “off-grid, on-net.”
[...]” (full article at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/03/world-mobile-data-traffic-to-explode-by-factor-of-26-by-2015.ars)
I think that supporting such an expansion is also a challenge of network support, that, in most cases is running at nearly full capacity.
I’m not confident that in 4 years we can build and reinforce networks more than was done in last 10 years.
The other fact that is really worrying is that nearly 1/3 of world population will live “on net and off grid”. This is a radical shift, because moves mobile access to primary needs, and I think that accessing the net is important, but not vital nor for development, nor for surviving.
This post as a comment also at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/03/world-mobile-data-traffic-to-explode-by-factor-of-26-by-2015.ars?comments=1&p=21385440#comment-21385440
This is exactly what I was thinking and i’m looking for more at google