Technology and media experts are forecasting the number of
mobile broadband users to reach 418 million globally by 2017. The prediction was contained in Coda Research Consultancy’s 3G+ and Long Term Evolution (LTE) forecasts. The number of traffic among
mobile broadband users is expected to be grow by forty times in the next eight years to 1.8 exabytes per month, with
laptop and
netbook users generating $48 billion in revenue from mobile broadband alone by 2017.
The majority of this growth is expected to occur in the Asia-Pacific region, which will account for 162 million of these users according to the forecasts. Europe will be the second largest number of mobile
internet users, despite having the lowest growth of all the regions at a remarkably high 135 per cent. North America will grow to 58 million users, whilst the Middle East and Africa will provide 48 million mobile broadband users on PCs.
With the
credit crunch limiting consumer spending power,
netbooks have proved hugely popular in the past 18 months. It is this surge in popularity that has contributed to an increase in the use of mobile broadband, with a number of
mobile phone operators cashing in on the increased demand for the product.