Posted: 27th Jan, 2011 By: MarkJ

A new report from consultancy firm
IDATE has predicted that
global mobile internet penetration ( Mobile Broadband ) will grow from just over 20% in 2010 to reach 37% - or 2.67 Billion users - by 2015. The service will then generate
access revenues of GBP139bn (161bn Euros).
Soichi Nakajima, Senior Consultant for IDATE's Internet Business Unit, said:
"The mobile Internet has reached a stage where it is finally taking off in Western Europe and North America, where it is poised to follow the developments which have so far been seen in Japan for almost a full decade and, to a lesser extent, South Korea.
Regarding mobile connectivity devices such as USB dongles, their value is in fact higher than that of mobile phones today and this trend is expected to continue. The ARPU for mobile connectivity devices, depending on the country and region, can be more than double that of smartphones.
This trend is expected to continue, with sustained demand in particular of business users. This also means for operators, however, that these modems consume more traffic on a per subscription basis."
In terms of
Average Revenue Per User (ARPU), IDATE estimates that mobile connectivity devices (e.g. USB Modems / Dongles) generate more than double that of Smartphone's, yet the number of their shipments are lower than 10% of mobile phones.
However, the traffic volume created for each modem is higher, especially in light of the fact that the pricing for these modems is much lower compared to Smartphone's. Most phones are also not used for
tethering and tend to consume smaller quantities of data, while
USB Modems are often used like a fixed-line ISP alternative.
IDATE also predicts that the growth of new
Tablet computers (iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab etc.) will not have much of an impact, largely because it expects consumers to make more use of the embedded Wi-Fi than 3G connectivity.