Mobile broadband to be number 1 by 2011

Amazing by 2011 more people are expected to use Mobile broadband than fixed line. Informa Telecoms & Media, a UK based research company carried out the research, which indicates there will be more than one billion broadband subscribers worldwide in 2011, with the majority using mobile rather than fixed systems.

Increased adoption will also lead to bigger revenues, with Informa estimating that more than $400bn in service revenues will be generated by mobile broadband in 2012.

HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) is expected to be the leading mobile broadband technology by then in terms of number of subscribers. HSDPA is already available on some UK phones, including the Nokia N95, Samsung G600 and the Motorola Z8 RIZR. HSDPA offers internet connection speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps although no UK phone network can transmit at those speeds yet, the best UK speed is about 2.8 Mbps, which is faster than my Virgin Media connection which is only 2 Mbps on a fixed cable connection.

Meanwhile, TD-SCDMA (Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access), an alternative 3G technology which is currently being rolled-out in China, is expected to have close to 50 million subscribers by 2012.

Mobile broadband is already a significant market but will explode in the next five years as networks, devices and services mature and spark mass-market adoption. The freedom which be fanatasic and who knows what applications will be developed. It is certainly going to be an interesting time ahead.