Mobile Infrastructure Trends for 2010
Posted by Ravi Ravishankar on Thu, Jan 14, 2010 @ 09:47 PM
Mobile data traffic is growing beyond our imagination. After the introduction of the latest iPhone in June, Google stated that the mobile upload of video increased by 400% over the previous day. The introduction of Android powered phones including the recently launched Nexus One will only increase this rate. Over the next four years, it is projected that global mobile traffic will exceed 50,000 Terabytes per day! I believe that this humongous data avalanche that is taking over the mobile world will remain the single most important factor that will influence mobile infrastructure trends in 2010 and beyond.
So if I have to pick the top three mobile infrastructure trends for 2010 what will they be?
- 3G/4G Network expansion will continue through this year at an accelerated pace. We will see more and more deployments of HSPA, HSPA+ and LTE.
- Convergence of Wireless LAN/WAN - Traffic growth may be huge, but operators are yet to find that magic formula to monetize all this traffic growth. That means cost optimization of network expansion is critical. Wi-Fi and Femtocell micro-sites will complement 3G/4G networks by offloading much of the data traffic.
- Just throwing money into mobile bandwidth infrastructure will not by itself address the problem of exploding mobile data traffic. Networks will get smarter in handling the traffic. Better traffic management and differentiated treatment of different traffic types are the essential short-term solution. In the long run, the industry also needs innovative pricing that monetizes different types of traffic that can fund infrastructure growth. Net Neutrality driven regulation may be a wild card that will influence this in certain regions, but I still think this will be the case globally.
What would be your top 3 trends?