The continuing growth and popularity of mobile broadband and people using their mobile phones to access the Internet is set to send mobile data transfer to rise 25 fold by 2012!
The problem for the mobile operators is that in the same period of time the revenues from those using the services is only expected to double and that they need to act now to avoid data traffic jams in the future through the hugely increased usage!
Smartphones have been a huge driving factor is users using their mobile phones to access the Internet, with iPhones and Blackberrys some of the most popular phones being sold today. There has already been a boom in the take up of mobile broadband but this is likely to not have as widespread use as connecting to the Internet via mobile phones.
Towards the end of 2010 we are due to see the launch of Long Term Evolution (LTE), also known as 4G, that should offer far greater mobile network capacity and faster speeds but until this is fully launched we are unlikely to know how well it is going to be able to cope with the huge increase in demand for mobile Internet.