Telecom Lead America: The volume of mobile data
traffic will exceed 107 exabytes in 2017.
This total traffic volume will be eight times more than
what is expected for 2012.
It looks like 2015 will be the last year when the
traffic volume will grow by more than 50 percent annually. And that will happen
despite of the fact that the monthly average per wireless subscriber,
worldwide, will increase to almost 1.5 gigabytes by the end of our forecasting
period,” said ABI Research senior analyst Aapo Markkanen.
A lot of the overall data consumption will depend on how
much of on-demand video content will in the end be delivered over cellular
networks, so changes implemented by individual content providers may have
far-reaching effects.
Recently, Netflix added to its iOS app a simple function
by which users can limit their viewing to Wi-Fi only and thereby avoid overage
charges. Besides accidental video streams, app downloads and updates are
another activity that can be easily steered onto fixed networks.
High-end Android smartphones, for example, have developed
a reputation of being the worst sort of data hogs, but that is to a great
extent just because Google has paid so little attention to the issue when
designing its platform. More recently, though, both Android and Google Play
have seen improvements that make it much easier for the end-users to monitor
and control their data usage.
Inadvertent data consumption has thus far been a
surprisingly large source of traffic, but in the next couple of years we will
see more and more of relatively quick fixes in the OS and the application
levels. They will substantially ease this needless burden on networks,” said
Jake Saunders, VP for core forecasting, ABI Research.
