The GSM Association (GSMA) reports that global Mobile Broadband connections have roughly doubled over the last 12 months to reach a milestone of 200 million. It's noted that 16 million Britons made use of Mobile Broadband services during December 2009 and the biggest driver was social networking content (e.g. Facebook).

By the end of 2010 this figure is estimated to reach 342 million global connections, with Europe being home to 120 million of those. The Asia Pacific region will account for 116 million and North America 58 million.

Asia Pacific will see the greatest investment in Mobile Broadband with predicted capital expenditure of up to £21.7 billion. North America follows with up to £12.1 billion, with Europe expected to invest up to £9 billion. Mobile Broadband is set to account for 52% of all operator investment in mobile infrastructure globally.


For those not in the know, HSPA is currently the dominant form of Mobile Broadband technology in the UK. It is capable of delivering downloads speeds of 'up to' 14.4Mbps (5.8Mbps upload), though the UK average speed tends to be nearer 1Mbps due to limited capacity, weaknesses in coverage and some underlying problems with the technology (i.e. poor capacity management).

Across 123 countries, there are currently 294 commercially live networks, of which 183 currently deliver peak data rates of above 3.6 Mbps, and 37 commercially live HSPA+ networks, each capable of delivering data speeds up to 21 Mbps.

The GSMA's report claims that operators around the world are pledging investment for continued HSPA and HSPA+ network upgrades to optimise available data speeds and maximise network capacity. HSPA+ is an enhanced form of HSPA that can deliver download speeds of up to 42Mbps (22Mbps upstream) and also offers some crucial capacity management improvements.

It's worth noting that we haven't heard even a whisper out of UK operators about HSPA+ yet, most seem to be focused on leapfrogging that and going straight to Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology. First generation LTE can offer speeds of up to 150Mbps and has many improvements, although it will not solve the underlying problems of limited network capacity and so speeds will only see a moderate rise.