The GSM Association (GSMA) has predicted that total Mobile Broadband subscribers in key European markets will rise from about 22 million at the end of 2009 to over 43 million in 2011. The organisation has also appeared to throw its weight behind Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology for use in next generation Mobile Broadband networks.

The CCS Insight’s report found that total revenue from Mobile Broadband access in the major markets will also rise from less than £5.37 billion in 2009 to more than £9.84 billion in 2011. Much of this will be supported by existing HSPA based Mobile Broadband technology, which offers download speeds of up to 14.4Mbps.

Among Europe's major markets, the highest charging countries for Mobile Broadband are France, where 4GB (GigaByte's) of data can cost a subscriber almost £76 a month, and Germany, where subscribers can pay £40.27 for 1GB of data! The least expensive Mobile Broadband in the top five markets is, yes you guessed it.. the UK; competition here is fierce and subscribers often pay less than £15.21 a month for 3GB.


As for the future, O’Hara predicts that HSPA+ (44Mbps) and next generation 4G LTE services (150Mbps to 1Gbps; though initial deployments are often considered to be more 3.9G than 4G) will see increased rollouts offering faster speeds.

O’Hara believes that such services will even "compete with fixed line broadband offerings," though we doubt that would be the case, at least until current capacity problems can be solved. Presently many services in the UK offer speeds of 3.6Mbps to 7.2Mbps but most have trouble delivering just 1 - 2Mbps.

Elsewhere the GSMA has said that licensing of the 2.6GHz band will be critical to unlocking the benefits of global scale economies in Mobile Broadband markets. 2.6GHz is designed for use by both next generation Mobile Broadband candidates ( LTE and WiMAX ), though the GSMA appears to be following operators, the EU and even some regulators by mentioning only LTE in its update.

If we’re really lucky then Ofcom might eventually auction off is 2.6GHz spectrum spaces too, but we’re still waiting for that and the wider Digital Britain report proposals to reach fruition.