Mobile broadband connections have definitely become one of the fastest growing segments in the ICT market. An annual report from the International Telecommunication Union titled “Measuring the Information society 2013” has revealed a bunch of data about the current scenario as well as some extreme predictions for the future.
The report claims that there will be 6.8 billion total mobile cellular connections by the end of 2013. The number is staggering, as it almost matches the global population. It also seems a bit too high to be believable, bearing in mind the short timeframe mentioned. It also estimates that around 2.7 billion people will connect to the Internet by the end of the year, although the speeds and prices for the same will vary widely. The figure also means that while 40 percent of the current population will have Internet access, around 4.4 billion people will still be left in the dark.
In terms of overall ICT development, Korea has topped the report’s annual listing of countries for the third time in a row. The report also refers to the ICT development index registered among 157 countries towards the ends of 2012, where it was found that India ranks a lowly 121 in the listing. This indicated that the country is one of the least connected in the world.
6.8bn connections by end of 2013
The findings show that mobile broadband connections over 3G and 3G+ networks are growing at an average annual rate of 40 percent. That equates to a mobile broadband subscription base of 2.1 billion users and an overall global penetration rate of almost 30 percent. The report states that almost 50 percent of the global population is now covered by a 3G network.
The report found that 150 million new users came online by the end of 2012. One of the reasons for this seems to be the increased affordability of mobile broadband over fixed broadband connections. Analysing the broadband pricing trends in over 160 countries between 2008 and 2012 shows that fixed broadband prices fell by 82 percent overall. The biggest drop took place in developing countries, with a price drop of 30 percent being registered between 2008 and 2011. The data crunching also showed that mobile broadband is more affordable in developing countries than fixed broadband. The report also finds that in 2012, there were around 363 million “digital natives” out of a population of around 7 billion. This amounts to 5.2 percent of the total global population and around 30 percent of the global youth population.
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