Telecom Lead Asia: An Ericsson report said 85 percent of
the world’s population will have internet coverage via 3G by 2017.
There will be close to nine billion mobile subscriptions
in 2017, compared to six billion by the end of 2011. Machine-to-machine
subscriptions will add to this figure.
Mobile broadband subscriptions will reach five billion in
2017, compared to one billion by the end of 2011, according to Ericsson’s
second Traffic and Market Report.
“Today, people see access to the internet as a
prerequisite for any device. This mindset results in growing demand for mobile
broadband and increased data traffic. Operators recognize this business
opportunity and are aiming to facilitate this growth and provide good user
experience with fast data speeds through high capacity networks. Today, around
75% of the HSPA networks worldwide have been upgraded to a peak speed of 7.2
Mbps or above and around 40% has been upgraded to 21 Mbps,” said Douglas
Gilstrap, senior vice president and head of Strategy, Ericsson.
Ericsson predicts that by 2017 half of the world’s
population will be covered by LTE/4G networks.
Smartphone subscriptions will number around three billion
in 2017 – compared to 700 million in 2011.
Total mobile data traffic continues to increase –
between Q1 2011 and Q1 2012 data traffic doubled – and the prime driver is
video.
The mobile data traffic will grow by 15 times between
2011 and 2017.
In the case of mobile net additions, China added the most
subscriptions for a single country in Q1 2012 with 39 million, followed by
India with 25 million.
The Asia Pacific region added in total 93 million
subscriptions, followed by Africa with 30 million.
