The launch of e-readers, the Apple iPad and other embedded mobile broadband devices is set to transform the way users access the Web and personal content at home, as demand for innovative services transforms the way we consume media. That means the role of wireless carriers must shift as well.
Even when they’re at home, people increasingly like to use their connected devices over Wi-Fi and 3G networks for mobile entertainment. “The traditional services are voice, SMS and data connectivity or transport,” said Kittur Nagesh, director of service provider marketing at Cisco Systems Inc. “Now, that’s shifting to a world of mobile Internet services – video, cloud services, UC, social networking.”
“As networks grow, users will be looking for a fully featured broadband experience over the mobile network,” Doug Webster, senior director of strategic communications, service provider marketing at Cisco, told VON. Video will soon make up 60 percent of the traffic on mobile devices, as larger screens and higher resolutions give users new ways to access content.
In its Global Mobile Data Forecast for 2009-2014, Cisco projects annual global mobile data traffic to reach 3.6 exabytes per month – an annual run rate of 40 exabytes – by 2014. That’s a compound annual growth rate of 108 percent. Much of that will be driven by the rapid consumer adoption of smartphones, netbooks, e-readers and Web-ready video cameras. By 2014, more than 400 million of the world’s Internet users will access the network solely through a mobile connection.
Because services and devices within the home will be soon be so much more advanced – and mobile – than what we have now, the network proposition will change accordingly. Wireless operators can offer personalized services tailored to a customer’s location, device and billing plan, inside the home or out.
That becomes particularly important because the carrier role is changing as third parties and device-makers gain more prominence. The shifting landscape of mobile operating systems, from Google Android to the newly open-source Symbian OS, will continue to drive device innovation.
“How do carriers maintain their position in the residential value chain? That’s the multibillion-dollar question,” Nagesh noted. “Anything that goes wrong, the operator gets blamed. Everything that goes right, the iPhones of the world take the credit.”
“We still want broadband, performance and capacity, and have very high expectations of the network,” said Tom Donnelly, co-founder of policy specialist Sandvine. “So part of this is going to be about personalization.”
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