Nearly every company on the show floor at Mobile World Congress has projections of broadband growth, says Sue Marek of Fierce Wireless:
- Nokia Siemens Networks estimated that by 2020 wireless customers globally will be using 1 GB of data per day, an amount equivalent of every user watching one hour of high-definition video per day.
- Alcatel-Lucent predicted 87 times growth in daily traffic on networks in five years. The company expects 50 percent of that traffic will be on cellular networks while the remaining 50 percent will be off-loaded to Wi-Fi.
- Ericsson says network traffic could increase 10 times by 2016 with five times more smartphone users and 5 billion more mobile broadband users.
- Telefónica Spain estimated there will 10 billion mobile Internet devices in use in 2020, up from 2 billion today.
Operators are offloading their macro networks with small cells integrating 3G, 4G — and Wi-Fi. Does that mean free public WiFi will get pushed out by carrier-based subscription services? The short answer seems to be “yes”.
Ruckus Wireless is debuting a cellular infrastructure product at Mobile World Congress, with a carrier-class Wi-Fi access points that can accommodate 3G/4G radios.
Telecom giants are integrating Wi-Fi into their service offerings. Ericsson is buying Wi-Fi vendor BelAir Networks, while Alcatel-Lucent last week announced a system for users to roam easily between Wi-Fi hotspots and its cellular infrastructure. Alcatel-Lucent lightRadio WiFi device adds WiFi connectivity, as well as 2G, 3G and LTE. They can be mounted on bus stops, using LTE as the backhaul.
The Wireless Broadband Alliance, a collection of network operators, announced successful tests of what WBA calls the “Next Generation Hotspot,” based in part on Passpoint and other WFA specs.
