Cellular data to grow 10 times by 2021: Ericsson

The amount of data flowing through cellular networks, both in North America and around the world, will increase almost 10 times over the next six years as growth in smartphone adoption continues and video consumption becomes more popular, according to reports released by Ericsson AB on Tuesday. Ericsson said global mobile data this year is expected to average 5.3 exabytes a month and rise to 51 EB by 2021, as it increases by an average of 45 per cent a year over that time. (One exabyte is equal to about one billion gigabytes.) The networking technology company said total traffic in Canada and the United States combined will rise from 1.3 EB a month this year to 9 EB by 2021. Data used on each smartphone in Canada and the U.S. is forecast to go from 3.8 gigabytes a month this year to 22 GB in 2021. The number of smartphone subscriptions between the two countries will increase from 280 million this year to 410 million in 2021, Ericsson said. "Everything is going more and more video, which of course drives the consumption and the data-traffic volumes, and we expect this to increase with the proliferation of smartphones with larger screens and better resolution driving consumption growth," Peter Jonsson, Ericsson's director of business intelligence, said in phone interview. Ericsson's report on global mobile networks said the proportion of mobile data used by video would grow from 50 per cent this year to 70 per cent by 2021. The report dealing specifically with North America said more than 90 per cent of the mobile traffic growth between now and 2021 will come from smartphones, as opposed to other devices such as tablets and mobile PCs. Also key to the growth in mobile data usage will be the growing availability of high-speed networks, Ericsson said. It said the proportion of mobile subscriptions in Canada and the U.S. on LTE networks will increase to 95 per cent by 2021, up from 50 per cent this year. Some of those LTE connections by 2021 will be on what's considered to be 5G networks, Ericsson said. Ericsson said it expects 150 million 5G subscriptions around the world by 2021, as this type of technology becomes commercially available by 2020. The U.S., Japan, South Korea and China will see the fastest initial adoption rates of these advanced networks, it said. Asked about different services that will be made possible by 5G networks, Jonsson said: "It's not easy to answer five years ahead what will be the particular things. ... The key thing with 5G is how it can use the machine-type communications and Internet-of-Things (IoT) enablement." Jonsson said IoT currently represents about one per cent of mobile data, and it's anticipated to remain in the single digits by 2021 despite the number of cellular subscriptions involving M2M devices or consumer devices that do not include things like smartphones, tablets and computers growing from 400 million this year to 1.5 billion by 2021. Stephen Carson, Ericsson's director of strategic marketing, said in phone interview that, when it comes to IoT, "it's not a lot about the total amount of traffic, but the value of the bits that are transmitted can be relatively high." He said latency, or how long it takes for a packet of data to get from one point to another, is an aspect that currently limits the potential of IoT. 5G will reduce latency, and an example of how it will facilitate IoT is that "communications between motor vehicles and road infrastructure, and being able to do things with driverless cars, etc., becomes more possible." Carson added that 5G communications would allow for a greater sophistication in the operation of sensors that collect valuable data — often placed in hard-to-access locations — so that they can be operated in such a way that battery lives can be preserved longer. Jonsson said there are new opportunities being created for mobile-service providers by these advances in network technology. "This is a whole new market to open up, potentially, for the service providers, and with a lot of enterprise opportunities," he said. "And I think that is what many of the operators are considering and trying to move against in terms of understanding how the connectivity and networks can provide analytics and big-data capabilities to different enterprises. How can they support these enterprises to become more efficient?" — With reporting by Derek Abma at dabma@thewirereport.ca and editing by Shruti Shekar at sshekar@thewirereport.ca

Cellular data to grow 10 times by 2021: Ericsson

News | 11/16/2015 7:10 pm EST

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