Hosted VoIP

Mobile traffic generated in the home environment was estimated at 40 percent last year, according to a new report from Informa Telecoms & Media.

 

The report, “Mobile Broadband Access at Home: The Business Case for Femtocells (News - Alert), UMA and IMS/VCC Dual Mode Solutions,” also says that by 2013 it’s expected to reach an overwhelming 58 percent. The analyst firm expects Femtocells deployment to help operators offload up to eight percent of total mobile traffic to fixed networks via end-user broadband lines.

 

“While mobile operators continue to develop their own services and strategies around applications such as music, games, TV and video, there was a realization during 2007 that a far greater opportunity exists in providing unrestricted broadband access to the Internet,” said Malik Saadi, principal analyst at Informa (News - Alert) and lead author of the report.

 

The report finds that mobile voice minutes of use in the home will approach 42 percent of total mobile voice traffic by the end of 2008. As the price gap between fixed and mobile calls narrows, mobile voice usage at home will gradually increase to reach 49 percent by 2013. The office environment will come in second with a 30 percent market share, while only nine percent of calls will be initiated on the move – when walking, driving, or on the train – and the remaining 21 percent of calls will be generated from other public environments.

 

Mobile data usage is also expected to increase, thanks to flat-rate data-plans, the rollout of mobile broadband networks and the advances in mobile terminal software. In particular, advanced user interfaces are leading to the proliferation of a new type of smartphones and mobile Internet devices, including Apple’s iPhone and Google’s (News - Alert) G1.

 

“In the same way that voice traffic has moved from old fixed line telephony service PSTN to mobile, there is reason to believe that a significant percentage of Internet traffic generation will move away from fixed personal computers to mobile devices, including mobile handsets, mobile Internet devices (MIDs) and connected notebooks,” Saadi says.

 

These strategies are starting to pay off with the leading mobile operators seeing data revenues surpassing 40 percent growth in 1H 2008 compared to the same period last year. Australia’s Telstra (News - Alert) for example announced its non-SMS data revenues have jumped 84 percent to Aus $360 million in 1H08. Verizon Wireless recorded 49 percent year-on-year data revenue growth in 1Q08 and AT&T (News - Alert) 57 percent.

 

At the same time, mobile data traffic is surging with operators now recording growth ranging from 120 percent to 250 percent over their networks. However, Informa has estimated that annual revenues generated by 1 PetaByte of data traffic will decrease by a factor of 4.9 by 2012 to reach $125 million – down from $612 million in 2008.

 

In 2008, the home environment will already be responsible for more than 43 percent of total mobile data traffic, but this traffic is expected to predominate with 60 percent by 2013. The growth will be driven by users increasingly initiating longer and richer data sessions in the relaxed environment of their home, through browsing the Internet, watching longer and richer video clips, downloading music and video content, exchanging pictures, or using VoIP and on-line chatting.

 

“This does not mean that mobile broadband services will fully substitute fixed broadband, but users will prefer to keep some applications on their mobile or portable devices since these offer greater privacy” Saadi said. The report can be found at: http://telecoms.msgfocus.com/c/1h780rQMdXiB7Shpl