Operators Surprised by Increase in Mobile Broadband Usage

By John Read - Published March 31st 2008 - 19:18

Mobile broadband operators were surprised to learn that High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) use increased a whopping 850% over the past year. A year ago there were about three million HSPA connections compared to over 32 million now. The rapid growth can be attributed to the increased demand for wireless broadband connections for notebook computers.

A graph from Juniper Research last August forecasts the trend:

According to chief research officer at Informa Telecoms and Media, Mark Newman, "Operators have found a brand new market, connecting laptops to the Internet." Newman adds that lower prices, broader coverage and easier setup have also bolstered broadband popularity.

Such enormous and rapid growth presents new challenges however. The big concern for carriers now is capacity for both mobile networks and backhaul, which is the links that attach the base stations to the rest of the world. With the number of subscribers rapidly increasing, carriers must upgrade their networks to keep pace or risk a decrease in performance which leads to discontent customers.

The question now is whether carriers can upgrade fast enough to avoid performance problems.

"Of course it's a challenge, but my CTO says we have everything under control, and we have already handled the first wave," according to Nicholas Högberg, chief commercial officer at Swedish mobile operator 3. The demand for capacity will force carriers to experiment with new methods of building mobile networks. Femtocell technology, which uses small base stations at the home or office to offload mobile network traffic by sending data via a fixed broadband connection, could see more use.

Aside from HSPA subscribers there has been huge growth in other areas as well. According to the GSM Association there has been a 265% increase in the number of devices since January 2007. There are now 467 USB handsets, modems, notebook PCs, data cards and wireless routers for users to choose from, compared to just 128 last year. The number of HSPA networks has also increased from 73 last year to 166.

The announcement comes just in time for 2008's CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas this week. Director of technology for the GSM Association, Dan Warren, believes that WiMax and Long Term Evolution will be the dominant themes at the convention.

[via NetworkWorld]

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