The mobile data boom is well underway. A report I worked on, "Flat IP Architectures in Mobile Networks: From 3G to LTE," shows the emergence of 3G High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), and soon Evolved HSPA and next-generation LTE (a.k.a. 4G) access is enabling an entire new class of mobile broadband services and a steep rise in data traffic volumes.
The report pegged the rate of growth for data traffic at between four- and eightfold in 2007, depending on specific market conditions and operator pricing strategies. But in some markets, even an eightfold increase in traffic is an underestimate.
New research from the Helsinki University of Technology shows a near 11-fold increase in mobile data traffic in Finland over the course of 2007! What makes this growth rate even more remarkable is that only 2 percent of devices measured were using high-speed packet access (HSPA) technology. Imagine the impact when, say, 20 percent of users have HSPA devices.
The findings are presented as part of the annual study the university's Networking Laboratory runs on mobile data usage. The study itself is based on data collected from monitoring equipment attached directly to the three main Finnish mobile core networks and measures the activity of more than 4 million devices. A summary of the results is available here.
Some other notable points from the study:
Ninety-two percent of data traffic is generated by personal computers; smartphones generate just 4 percent of traffic.
The Internet was easily the major traffic destination, accounting for 95 percent of the total, up from 89 percent in 2006. Corporate networks account for just 4 percent of traffic, and operator WAP portals less than 1 percent.
The majority of traffic (approximately 60 percent) was not identified but was almost certainly generated by P2P applications; Web was the dominant identified application, generating 35 percent of all computer traffic and 79 percent of all handset traffic.
Computer traffic peaks in the evening and is evenly spread through the week; handset traffic peaks in the morning as users check mobile email.
Traffic is becoming more symmetric with 65 percent on the downlink in 2007, versus 73 percent in 2006 and 84 percent in 2005.
Finns love Formula 1 auto racing, with traffic spikes aligned with race times. Take a bow, Kimi Räikkönen!
What this all means is that, even though the total traffic volumes are still relatively small, mobile networks are becoming more and more like their wired broadband forerunners. As HSPA subscriber numbers, and therefore data traffic, continue to increase, it's becoming ever clearer that the classic, hierarchical mobile network architectures, designed in the circuit-switched era, are no longer viable.
What's required are flat, packet-switched network architectures designed to provide cost-per-bit on a par with DSL or cable modem services. Oh, and all the evidence indicates that some form of intelligent traffic management capability will be needed to ensure fairness among users competing for scarce radio access capacity.
Whoa! caught me of guard there. I completely missed the football, futbol or soccer boat. I'll talk about baseball, basketball, american football or tennis... or maybe technology and internet! hehe
Well, i'm sitting on my sofa watching the Euro 2008 and posting from my phone. So yes, I agree, usage will grow.
I am backing Portugal for the Euros. The Dutch looked good as well after thrashing Italy 3-0.
Or will this be the year Spain finally come good?They demolished Russia the other night.
What is the average use of a 3G service? are the caps real or are the planning for the future?
I think that with the mass and accessible distribution of better and cheaper 3G equipment, people will start to use and require more and more bandwidth, and with more traffic, more services will be required and offered.
I was listening to a webinar by Alcatel-Lucent where they said that right now the bandwidth demand is growing more than the revenue for the mobile operators (and probably for fixed broadband operators as well).
Short answer is, no. Mobiles will never generate as much traffic as wired devices.
But frequency of use, and the value users get from that use, is increasing all the time.
Wireless networks have far less capacity than wired broadband access networks, so yes, congestion is lilkey. This is why you get fairly strict data caps on 3G service plans.
As you mention, the frequency of use is definitely greater for mobile users but regarding the overall use of the networks, are they gaining some ground or are fixed users using more and more resources, and mobiles staying behind?
With the announcement of the new iPhone 3G and the very affordable price they are offering at, I would guess to think that mobile data networks will start to get congested pretty soon.
Hi Murugan: I don’t think handsets will ever generate as much data traffic as personal computers, or say, set-top boxes. But I’m sure more and more of the time we spend using Internet services will be through mobile devices, whether smartphones or tablet-type things.
Moreover, we will use mobile devices to access internet services much more frequently than PCs. You can see this already with Blackberry.
The price of the components used to make tablet devices like the Nokia N800 or even iPhone are set to plummet. Platforms like Qulacomm’s SnapDragon will revolutionize this market in the next couple of years.
What about you, do you use anything other than a laptop or desktop?
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I've been writing about how the next evolution of the Internet might just be an advertising revolution, and how corporate IT can stay involved as the enablers and providers of the technologies that make this possible.
In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M.
The smartphone market reached a significant milestone, a breakthrough that may cause vendors to celebrate but could strain the capabilities of IT service desks.
In the fall of 2011, around 160,000 students in 190 countries enrolled in a Stanford-sponsored online course about artificial intelligence. About 23,000 completed the course and got certificates, including 248 who got a perfect score. The university offered the same course the old-fashioned way to students sitting in Stanford classrooms. None of the those students got a perfect score.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
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M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
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