end of the PC era confirmed: no holding back the mobile internet

Published February 20, 2012 by Stewart Baines in mobility

Mobile internet growth confirms the shift in computing to personal devices. The recent Cisco Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast tells us what we probably all ready knew: mobile devices have turned the internet upside down.

Global mobile data traffic grew 2.6-fold in 2010, nearly tripling for the third year running. To put it into perspective, Cisco claims that last year's mobile data traffic alone was three times the size of the entire global Internet in 2000, with the top 1% of mobile subscribers generating over 20% of mobile data traffic. Overall mobile data traffic is expected to grow to 6.3 exabytes per month by 2015, a 26-fold increase over 2010.

That direction is confirmed by StatCounter, which claims Internet usage through mobile devices has at least doubled each year since 2009. Many of these will have mobile broadband as their main way of accessing the internet.

we want data, and we want it everywhere

The cause of this is our love of smartphones, which in 2011 eclipsed PC sales for the first time says Canalys; 488 million smartphones shipped, compared to 415 million PCs. In fact the number of mobile-connected devices seems set to exceed the number of people on the planet, Cisco predicts , and that’s by the end of 2012.

Smartphones: Represent only 12% of total global handsets in use today, but over 82% of total global handset traffic. And, smartphone traffic in 2016 will be 50 times greater than it is today, with a CAGR of 119% percent.

Tablets: In 2011 the number of mobile-connected tablets tripled to 34 million, each one generating 3.4 times more traffic than the average smartphone. Relevant to this, it seems the average amount of traffic per smartphone in 2011 was 150 MB per month, up from 55 MB per month in 2010.

Ultrabooks: 3G-enabled ultra-notebooks are another trend that’s beginning to place significant new strains on mobile bandwidth. “There were 175 million laptops on the mobile network in 2011, and each laptop generated 22 times more traffic than the average smartphone. Mobile data traffic per laptop was 2.1 GB per month, up 46% from 1.5 GB per month in 2010.”

driving the demand

So what are people doing with their mobile devices to generate so much data traffic? Watching streaming videos, Cisco explains, is the single largest application. "Mobile video traffic will exceed 50% [of total mobile data traffic] for the first time in 2011.” Two-thirds of the world's mobile data traffic will be video by 2016.

Carriers are reacting to the accelerating demand for bandwidth, the survey confirms. Mobile network connection speeds improved, on average, by 66% in 2011. However, the more speed we get, the faster we want to go. “Although 4G connections represent only 0.2% of mobile connections today, they already account for 6% of mobile data traffic," says Cisco.

managing expectations

Supporting the accelerating level of data consumption is a problem for carriers. In an attempt to meet this demand, carriers are adopting hybrid systems to offload traffic onto fixed networks, using technologies such as Wi-Fi, Femtocells, White Space tech and so on. Globally, 33% of handset and tablet data traffic was offloaded onto the fixed network through Wi-Fi or femtocell access in 2011, says Cisco.

Also supporting the effort to reduce the pressure on access networks is to limit user allowances. “The rapid increase in data usage presents a challenge to service providers who have implemented tiers defined solely in terms of usage limits. Mobile data caps that fall too far behind usage volumes may create opportunities for competitors in the market. For this reason, many service providers are creating more nuanced tiers and data add-ons, such as a separate charge for tethering and hotspot functionality.”

3 comments

March 01, 2012
by
Lopez Research

Stewart, certainly tablets are the future here! It's a matter of PC stepping up their game. Businesses are adopting Ipads over android tablets because their are still some kinks that need to be worked out. Many just don't seem reliable quite yet, but they are on their way! We too are interested in seeing if windows 8 will bridge the gap. Fingers crossed for those PC lovers! Thanks for responding to our post!!
February 22, 2012
by
Stewart Baines

Hi Maribel, thanks for the complement. Certainly in my time as a tech writer, I've seen the PC world turned upside down by the impact of the iPad and iPhone. At the moment the anything-goes PC and the highly-controlled, highly-usable iPad environments are polls apart. It will be interesting to see if Windows 8 can bridge the gap. There's a lot of businesses adopting tablets - but giving them access to corporate apps. If companies are thinking of migrating ERP etc to the cloud, they have to consider what the clients will - why not a tablet rather than a PC?
February 22, 2012
by
Lopez Research

Mobile technology is certainly on the rise. You provide some excellent information regarding the future of mobile devices. We agree that mobile technology will be the future of consumer internet consumption. The rate at which mobile devices have been developed and put out onto the market sets up the stage for this. Companies that are not currently engaging in these devices are at a great disadvantage here. Great post!