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Report: Mobile data traffic patterns look similar to fixed broadband patterns
Network policy provider Sandvine on Tuesday will release its semi-annual Internet traffic trends report, which looks at the state of mobile networks and analyzes their mobile broadband traffic trends using a representative cross-section of mobile broadband operators worldwide. The conclusion: Traffic mimics the kind of traffic seen on fixed broadband networks.
"In our Mobile Internet report, we observed that mobile users were running similar applications as on fixed networks, including real-time communications such as IM and Skype," said Sandvine's President and CEO Dave Caputo in a release. "With the emergence of more powerful mobile devices, like the iPad, and the ready availability of laptop dongles, more and more users on the go will be foregoing traditional voice in favor of data-centric, bandwidth-intensive applications."
Tom Donnelly, co-founder and executive vice president of Sandvine, told FierceBroadbandWireless that, in accordance with what AT&T has said about usage trends, that 5 percent of users account for approximately half of the data traffic on average. "Flat-rate billing does not align with subscriber usage," he said.
Donnelly said Facebook is the most widely used application on mobile data networks, with users connecting on average once per hour. "It's not media intensive, but as it becomes more media rich, that can have a dramatic impact on the traffic patterns of networks," he said. Social networking in all, accounts for up to 9 percent of total bytes on any given mobile network, and YouTube accounts for 10 to 15 percent of total bytes on a given mobile network.
Related articles:
Cisco predicts bulk of mobile data traffic will be video content by 2014
Two studies point to explosive mobile broadband growth
AT&T chief: Industry moving toward usage-based pricing
More stories about flat-rate billing Data Traffic bandwidth-intensive applications usage-based pricing Sandvine
Comments
Posted by Anonymous | March 22, 2010 - 11:07am
This can not be true, even a monkey know that the iPhone is driving the mobile data growth.
*Irony may have been used in the above statement,
Apple fanboy's are required to take their daily dosis of happy medicin before reading.
Posted by Lynnette Luna | March 22, 2010 - 11:12am
The iPhone is not uniformly available across all operator networks and the majority of traffic is smartphone signaling not broadband traffic. This did not measure broadband growth, it measured broadband traffic patterns. --Lynnette
Posted by Anonymous | March 22, 2010 - 10:18pm
So what if "5% of the users use half the bandwidth" ... those users are smart by getting what they PAY FOR. Just because you have idiots paying $30 for 5GB (still way overpriced) and only use 0.25GB, doesn't mean we should all be idiots and not use what we pay for. I'm so sick of ATT and Verizon crying about $$ that I'm ready to say F' it and just go to a prepaid phone or use my mini PC for all communication.
Posted by Kevin m dude | March 25, 2010 - 3:37am
jeez I agree with this 100%, I really wish that these phone operators would quit bitching. I mean they are making billions of dollars of profit and getting funded by the government as well to expand their networks, I don't see the big deal if the 5% of users wanted to stream some video. I mean not like 95% of the other users are using any bandwidth any way. Its kinda like hotel rooms of there are open rooms let ppl have it at a cheaper price, if the network is operating at less than 95% capacity then let ppl use it other wise it is just going to waste anyway
Posted by Anonymous | March 22, 2010 - 11:30pm
"Donnelly said Facebook is the most widely used application on mobile data networks, with users connecting on average once per hour. "It's not media intensive, but as it becomes more media rich, that can have a dramatic impact on the traffic patterns of networks," he said."
The data trends could be an indicator of more people available to be online - such as those folks who are unemployed. This patter could change as the employment market picks up.
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