According to Ericsson, over the past two years, the consumption of mobile Internet in the world has doubled. Already this year, the average subscriber will consume up to 15 GB of traffic per month, and by the end of 2027 – 40 GB, the company predicts. However, experts fear that current technology will not be able to handle the load.
Cat videos are like drugs
At the end of June, Ericsson released another report Mobility Report on the state and prospects of the mobile Internet market. Only from the fourth quarter of 2021 to the first quarter of 2022, its consumption increased by 10%. The total monthly mobile traffic reached 93 Eb (1 exabyte – 1.048 million TB).
Compared to the first quarter of 2021, traffic increased by 40%, and compared to the first quarter of 2020, by 100%. That is, in just two years it has doubled. Ericsson attributes this to the explosive growth in people’s viewing of video content. Now video makes up 69% of monthly mobile traffic consumed, by 2027 this share will become even higher – 79%.
The Swedish company’s experts believe that by the end of the current year, each smartphone user will consume an average of 15 GB of mobile traffic per month. Back in 2017, this figure was 2.6 GB. With such dynamics, by the end of 2027, one user will already have 39.7 GB of mobile traffic per month.
The trend is spurred not only by the growing popularity of video services, but also by the rapid development of fifth generation networks (5G). In them, the data transfer rate is three to five times higher than in 4G networks.
Ericsson notes that fifth-generation networks have become the fastest growing networks in history. By 2027, they will cover 75% of the world’s population.
It is the countries that are actively developing 5G that will stimulate the growth of mobile data transmission in the world. In 2021, such networks accounted for 10% of global traffic, and in 2027 they will have 60%.
Growth is stimulated by mobile operators themselves. They are increasingly attracting consumers with unlimited tariffs. 40% of companies surveyed by Ericsson said they offer unlimited premium plans. And 90% of these operators have already launched 5G networks.
Overload after reboot
At the same time, as noted in the report, many “unlimited plans” still contain implicit restrictions. For example, using a smartphone as a router for distributing the Internet or connecting “smart” and at the same time traffic-intensive gadgets (speakers, CCTV cameras, smart TVs, and the like). This suggests that the operators themselves are afraid of excessive network load.
Michael Johnston, co-founder and director of business development for the IoT networking platform TEAL, does not rule out that the explosive growth of the mobile Internet “may lead to traffic disruptions due to the fact that the existing infrastructure may not be able to withstand the growing demand of users and the development of the Internet of things.”
“This will happen if there is no active deployment of new infrastructure capacities and the introduction of new network technologies,” the Forbes expert quotes. “Public cellular networks are already at risk, but we must not forget that private networks, Wi-Fi networks, WANs, satellite and Bluetooth technologies are also critical to the functioning of the Internet of Things.”
In this regard, the slowdown in the deployment of 5G networks is alarming. A year ago, the American media began informthat the rate of their introduction is falling. The experts cited the lack of available frequencies and equipment as the main reasons.
Michael Johnston believes that none of the new network technologies yet has all the necessary qualities – wireless transmission, broadband, low signal latency, always connected to the Internet.