Driven in large part by video streaming, mobile broadband traffic is soaring. And that is forcing at-times-reluctant carriers to ramp up their network investment over the next two years.
According to a new report from bandwidth-management specialist Allot Communications, streaming became the fastest-growing mobile application, essentially doubling in the second half of 2009. YouTube by itself gobbled 10 percent of the total available mobile bandwidth worldwide, Allot found in a study of mobile operators.
“Users prefer to individualize their content in real time instead of downloading ... to watch it at a later date,” the company noted.
In the United States, the number of people watching video on mobile devices will reach 74 million in 2015, generating 145 terabytes of traffic per month, Coda Research Consultancy reported in January. Growth in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa could outpace North America.
Social networking is also to thank – or blame, depending on your point of view – for the mobile traffic explosion. Facebook grew close to 180 percent in the second half of 2009, according to stats collected from mobile providers by Allot. More than 65 million of the site’s users accessed their pages through mobile devices.
Mobile Broadband Capex in 2010
All this bandwidth hunger has operators planning network upgrades, despite the lingering effects of the global economic recession. Even as subscriber growth has stalled, mobile Web access has proven tremendously popular thanks to innovative devices such as the Apple (AAPL) iPhone, as well as Verizon Wireless (VZ)’ Droid and the Nexus One, from Google Inc. (GOOG).
Those trendsetting handsets, along with the accompanying growth of applications and content, are “combining to reshape the landscape of mobile telecommunications," wrote Courtney Munroe, group vice president of worldwide telecommunications at research firm IDC.
That means spending on mobile and wireless infrastructure must also rise. Carriers in Asia Pacific will pump up to $34 billion into their infrastructure, the GSM Association (GSMA) reported last week, while North America will follow with up to $19 billion. Operators in Europe should invest about $14 billion, the GSMA found.