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Internet, Everywhere

 

Nobody could have anticipated the enormous increase in wireless traffic that occurred during the inauguration of Barack Obama. Millions of people around the globe were hooked on the event as they crowded around their mobile phones, hanging on every word that came out of his mouth.  Mobiles were used to make calls to friends and family, to watch the speech via a live video stream or to simply receive immediate updates from a news portal. It’s these massive events that stir up worldwide mobile use and cause wireless traffic to skyrocket.

Wireless traffic has been steadily rising for years, with the number of mobile internet users in the UK growing from 5.8 million in 2007, to a staggering 7.3 million in 2008, according to Nielsen Online. In fact, the number of global mobile broadband subscribers is set to outstrip wired broadband connections by as early as 2011, according to Infonetics Research.

Major mobile data service providers are currently experiencing increases in traffic of up to 400 per cent to 800 per cent each year. Considering commercial mobile broadband services really only started in early 2007, this growth has been overwhelming.

A recent whitepaper published by Infonetics Research concerning mobile broadband usage has identified four primary trends.

  1. The rapid growth and ongoing development of broadband services based on technologies such as WiMAX, HSPA and EV-DO.
  2. The proliferation of next-generation devices capable of consuming enormous bandwidth such as notebook ‘dongles’ to the Apple iPhone.
  3. The wide-spread use of Web 2.0 applications that have made the transformation to mobile devices, ranging from Google Maps to YouTube.
  4. The public’s acceptance of flat-rate mobile plans that actively promote an ‘all-you-can-eat’ consumption model.
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