Posted: 11th Jan, 2011 By: MarkJ

Telecoms manufacturer
Ericsson has reveal that Mobile Broadband subscriptions, as a global total, managed to reach
500 Million in 2010 and are now predicted to top
1 Billion before the end of 2011, possibly even reaching
3.8 Billion in 2015 (95% being driven by HSPA , CDMA and LTE based networks).
The greatest number of subscriptions (around 400 Million) is expected to be concentrated in the
Asia Pacific region, followed by
North America and
Western Europe with more than 200 Million subscriptions each.
An Ericsson Statement said:
Mobile broadband adoption has accelerated with strong growth of smartphones, connected laptops and tablets, supported by the introduction of high-performance networks. Smartphones' users are increasingly using applications and internet services on the go. Global mobile data traffic continues to grow rapidly, with Ericsson announcing in August 2010 that it had tripled in just one year.
Last year was also a good one for Long-Term Evolution (LTE). To date, Ericsson has signed commercial LTE (core and/or access) contracts with 11 operators worldwide. Almost half of a total of 16 networks Ericsson delivered have been commercially launched, and operators and consumers are starting to benefit from high-speed access enabled by LTE.
Users' consumption of the internet and other media is changing as a result of the introduction of fast networks and the availability of various types of devices, including smartphones. According to TeliaSonera's survey of its LTE users, about 23 percent of them now watch more online TV, and in excess of 46 percent surf the web more frequently when away from home.
According to the
Global Mobile Suppliers Association (GSA), as of November 2010 more than 99% of the world's WCDMA operators had deployed HSPA (up to 14.4Mbps) based Mobile Broadband. One in Five HSPA operators have also launched
HSPA Evolution /
HSPA+ services, which promise maximum download speeds of up to 42Mbps (22Mbps uploads).
Sadly, according to
Ofcom's Spectrum Auction Timetable, even faster commercial LTE and WiMAX networks won't truly start to appear until "
the end of 2013". It will then take several years to deploy. In the meantime it's unclear whether any of the operators will adopt HSPA+. We might have to wait awhile for UK Mobile Broadband services to improve beyond existing constraints.