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49 million notebooks with mobile broadband by 2013

The explosion in demand for mobile broadband is going to culminate in 49 million notebooks installed with integral mobile broadband over the next five years. Recent research from analyst firm Berg Insight says that Notebook PCs, destined for the European market, are starting to offer embedded mobile broadband chipsets as a standard feature. In laymans terms, this means that you can simply insert a mobile broadband SIM card to gain access to the internet, no matter where you are in the UK.

This huge growth - 34.1 per cent over 5 years - is driven by massive consumer demand for mobile broadband. This changes the way mobile broadband is marketed currently, where it works primarily as a complementary service, supplementing a fixed telephone line.

The enormous demand for mobile broadband services does leave mobile broadband providers with a dilemma. Mobile broadband is a very attractive proposition for making money for mobile broadband networks like Three, Orange, T-mobile and Vodafone. On the other hand, running mobile broadband networks is a problem purely because of its popularity. Mobile broadband usage is stretching the mobile network infrastructure to its limit, which means there is a danger that the service, to some at least, will suffer. This has led to some operators putting a limit on the amount of data traffic they allow, which means that the network speeds advertised for mobile broadband may not be the ones you get, as there is so much data being transferred that the networks can no longer cope.

Berg Insight warns that mobile broadband providers will have to significantly invest in infrastructures in order to service future demand. Tobias Ryberg, a senior analyst says, "In a few years, Internet users will expect to be able to view full HD streaming television via their internet connection. Then it will not do to offer 14.4Mbps which is in reality limited to a few gigabyte per month."

Mobile broadband is an enormous force, it seems. And we need to be with it.

09/07/2008
Author: CompareBroadbandUK staff writer

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