3G takes the lead in internet access by 2017

Available statistics Ericsson has showed that come 2017, 85 percent of the world’s population would have internet coverage via 3G.

Presenting the result of the Ericsson’s Second Traffic and Market Report to Nigerian ICT journalist from Stockholm, Sweden, Head of Strategic Marketing and Intelligence, Patrick Cerwall said mobile broadband subscriptions are also expected to reach five billion in 2017, compared to one billion by the end of 2011.

He told the media last weekend that there would be close to nine billion mobile subscriptions, compared to six billion by the end of 2011 adding that Machine-to-machine subscriptions will add to this figure.

Reacting to questions to the issues of policy and regulations in the Nigerian telecoms industry, Governemnt and Industry Relations Manager Hub for Central and West Region Sub-Saharan Africa, Mr. Olaseni Ashiru there is the need for all stakeholders to sit down and harmonising their several roles in the industry.

He said there is a limit that corporate bodies like Ericsson can go, saying that what the industry needs is a holistic approach that would respect the roles of everyone in the industry.

According to him, every levels of government must see itself as part of the industry noting that if the industry is progressing that will bring more revenue to the levels of government.

Senior Vice President and head of Strategy, Ericsson, Mr. Douglas Gilstrap, said,  “Today, people see access to the internet as a prerequisite for any device. This mindset results in growing demand for mobile broadband and increased data traffic”. He noted that mobile telephone operators have recognize this business opportunity and are aiming to facilitate this growth by providing good user experience with fast data speeds through high capacity networks.

As a result, he said about “75 per cent of the HSPA networks worldwide have been upgraded to a peak speed of 7.2 Mbps or above and around 40 per cent has been upgraded to 21 Mbps.”

The  Ericsson also predicted that by 2017 half of the world’s population will be covered by LTE/4G networks while smartphone subscriptions move to about three billion in 2017 compared to 700 million in 2011.

The report observed that total mobile data traffic in on the  increase as figures between Q1 2011 and Q1 2012 data traffic doubled with prime driver being video while Smartphones will remain, a key data traffic driver. The mobile data traffic will grow by 15 times between 2011 and 2017.

The data in the report also showed variations between countries and regions. In the case of mobile net additions, China added the most subscriptions for a single country in Q1 2012 with 39 million, followed by India with 25 million. The Asia Pacific region added in total 93 million subscriptions, followed by Africa with 30 million.

Cerwall noted that the main continuous trend identified in the report is that everything is going mobile stating that “this evolution is mainly being driven by people’s increasing demand for anywhere, anytime connectivity and the use of video, cloud-based services and the internet but also by machine-to-machine connectivity”.

Ericsson has performed measurements since the early days of mobile broadband from a large base of live networks covering all regions of the world.

The aim of the report was to share analysis based on these measurements, internal forecasts and other relevant studies to provide insights into the current traffic and market trends.