By the end of 2011, 6.05 million US households
will depend on a wireless or mobile platform including 3G or 4G as their only
means of accessing the internet.
This represents 6.9 percent of total US
broadband connections and a 430,000 net increase over 2010 levels.
These Mobile-Only customers connect to
broadband using 3G or 4G-enabled smartphones or PC dongles, and are unable or
unwilling to use a wired broadband service such as cable, DSL or fiber.
Over 50 percent of US household broadband
connections today are via cable modem, and this share is expected to increase
slightly over the next five years, according to Strategy Analytics.
However, the decline of telco-provided
digital subscriber line (DSL) subscriptions is gradually giving way to fiber
and mobile-only connections.
While mobile network capacity and traffic
are poised to explode in the near future, Strategy Analytics does not
anticipate 4G taking over as a primary access medium in the home.
“We see two parallel markets for ‘Mobile
Only’ in the US: users in remote or underserved areas where dependable fixed
broadband is unavailable, and cost-conscious casual users, who are unlikely to
exceed imposed data caps, and for whom mobile data rates are -good enough,”
said Ben Piper, Director of the Service Provider Strategies program at Strategy Analytics.
By Telecomlead.com Team
editor@telecomlead.com
