Fourth Wave Facts
Did you know that...?
- Annual global mobile data traffic will reach 3.6 exabytes per month or an annual run rate of 40 exabytes by 2014.
- By 2014, there could be over 5 billion personal devices connecting to mobile networks – and billions more machine-to-machine nodes.
- Mobile video is projected to represent 66% of all mobile data traffic by 2014.
- Global mobile data traffic has increased by 160% over the past year to 90 petabytes per month, or the equivalent of 23 million DVDs.
- Global mobile data traffic today is growing 2.4 times faster than global fixed broadband data traffic.
- Smartphones and laptop air cards are expected to drive more than 90% of global mobile traffic by 2014.
- By 2014, more than 400 million of the world's internet users will be able to access the network solely through a mobile connection.
- Today, the average mobile broadband connection generates 1.3 gigabytes of traffic per month – which is equivalent to approximately 650 MP3 music files.
- By 2014, the average mobile broadband connection is projected to generate 7 gigabytes of traffic per month – which is equivalent to approximately 3,500 MP3 music files.
Sources: Cisco Systems Visual Networking Index, 2010
Mobile Subscription Growth
- World population = 6.8 billion
- Mobile service subscriptions = 4.4 billion (65%)
- First billion in 20 years
- Second billion in 4 years
- Third billion in 2 years
- Fourth billion in 1 year
Sources: European Information Technology Observatory (EITO); International Telecommunications Union (ITU); Wireless Intelligence
Mobile Subscriptions by Geography
- Africa: 400 million
- China: 700 million
- European Union: 640 million
- India: 480 million
- Latin America: 475 million
- U.S.: 280 million
Sources: Paul Budde Communication; Digital Media Buzz; Kelsey Group;
Chetan Sharma; Telecom Paper
