MobileDataUse
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International Telecommunication Union: worldwide mobile subscriptions hit six billion in 2011
Last year, the UN's International Telecommunication Union (ITU) told us there were five billion mobile subscriptions worldwide at the close of 2010, and now it's reporting that at the end of 2011, that figure hit a staggering six billion. China and India account for one billion a piece, and it brings us ever closer to having the equivalent of one subscription for every person on the planet. (According to the CTIA, there are already more cellular plans in the US -- around 322 million -- than there are inhabitants.) In a stat-heavy release from the ITU, it also ranked the most advanced telecoms countries, with South Korea placing first, Japan eighth and countries in Europe filling the remaining spots. Interestingly, the number of global mobile broadband subscriptions now outnumbers fixed ones by two to one, and mobile internet services showed the biggest growth rates in 2011: 40% worldwide and 78% in developing markets. The ITU attributes the latter figure to the relatively high price of fixed access in these countries, and the increasing availability of mobile alternatives. The CTIA also commented on mobile broadband use, reporting that from July 2011 to June this year, Americans consumed 104 percent more data -- no doubt due, in part, to people taking advantage of expanding 4G coverage. As usual, we've given you the cheat sheet, so if you'd like the full reports and have got a thing for statistics, there's plenty more in the source links below. [Image credit: Chris Jordan]
Cisco: mobile connections will hit 10 billion by 2016, helped by tablet boom
That Cisco's always been prescient. Three years ago, the networking giant predicted a 66-fold increase in worldwide mobile data traffic -- a surge that was expected to dovetail with the spread of 4G networks. With us so far? Sounds pretty obvious sensible, right? Well, the company's got more wisdom to share from its crystal ball: the outfit's just released its annual mobile data traffic forecast, and the marquee stat is that there will be an estimated 10 billion mobile connections by 2016. And though Cisco expects the bulk of these (8 billion) to take the form of cell phones, it also foresees a rise in tablets: there will be 5 billion of them, the company says, and that's not even counting all those WiFi-only models floating around (Cisco tallies WiFi traffic in a different forecast, released later in the year). If the market does indeed swell to 5 billion cellular-connected tablets, that would represent a 25 percent jump over today's global figure. Moreover, Cisco estimates that by 2016 21 percent of those 5 billion tablet owners will be relying solely on mobile data to get their internet fix. All told, whatever the mix of smartphones and tablets, we're going to be chugging down an insane amount of data: 10.8 exabytes per month, worldwide, or 130 exabytes annually -- a lofty sum that breaks down to 33 billion DVDs, among other cutesy equivalents. One last figure before we sent you off into a statistic-laced coma: 4G will account for only six percent of mobile connections by 2016, but is expected to generate 36 percent of mobile data traffic. We'll let you newly minted LTE adopters chew on your piggy data-hogging habits; the rest of you can find more numbers in the PR after the break.
AT&T: 80 percent of network now upgraded to HSPA+
AT&T promised that it would be expanding its HSPA+ rollout this year, and it's now finally touting some actual results. Speaking at the Sencha Conference in San Francisco this week, AT&T CTO John Donovan confirmed that the carrier has upgraded a full 80 percent of its network to HSPA+, which promises to offer two and half times the performance of regular HSPA. Donovan also talked a bit out mobile data use in general, and revealed that data traffic growth has actually slowed over the past few months from a rate of 50 times to 30 times what it was three years ago. Donvon was quick to point out, however, that "If you look in absolute numbers, it's still a tremendous growth rate," and actually represents a three thousand percent uptick in data traffic over the past three years.
