4G To Reach 50% Of World's Population

Ericsson AB's latest report projects that around 50 percent of the world's population will have access to 4G mobile networks, and 85 percent will have 3G access by 2017.

The growth, the report says, will be largely driven by an increased proliferation of high-speed smartphones which will act as the key catalyst in driving content consumption. But only half the number of tablets are expected to have built-in 3G/4G modems, hence not many active subscription are expected from tablets. Overall, the number of mobile broadband subscriptions are projected to go up to 5 billion in 2017 from the current 1 billion. This number doesn't include the WiFi traffic. (See Mobile Broadband To Surpass $10 Bn: Idea, Delivering the 4G Promise and India’s 3G Uptake Is On Track: Telcos.)

Growth in the mobile data traffic is expected to continue, with video being the prime growth driver. According to the report, mobile data traffic will grow by 15 times between 2011 and 2017. China and India will continue to dominate the overall mobile Internet subscriptions. In Q1 2012, China added the most mobile broadband subscriptions at 40 million, followed by India at 25 million, an overall 40 percent of the estimated 170 million.

It is, however, imperative to note that there's a difference between the number of subscriptions and the number of subscribers. While many subscribers may have multiple subscriptions if they own multiple devices like PCs, tablets and mobile phones, many others may share a single device for connectivity.

The report highlights that as the penetration of smartphones increases, the demand for cloud-based services and anytime-anywhere connectivity will grow exponentially in the years to come.

The report also sees mobile as the key catalyst for broadband growth and suggests that there is a high need for exciting content, video and a good application-developer ecosystem to fuel the growth. In India, 4G is still in its early stages and the commercial launch of 3G is yet to bring any significant profits for operators. Hence, the recent move by operators to slash 3G tariffs is expected to drive the adoption in the next few months. (See Bharti Shares 4G Challenges, 2012: The Year Of 3G?, Idea Slashes 3G Tariff, Airtel Cuts 3G Tariff By 70% and MTNL Joins The Race To Slash Tariffs.)

Nevertheless, the key issues likely to impact the market are the overall quality of the network, speed and latency. The operators need to keep their tariffs low, but at the same time, they also need to maintain their service quality.

Jatinder Singh, Principal Correspondent, Light Reading India