By 2018 global mobile data traffic will increase 11-fold and hit an annual run rate of 190 exabytes, according to a new data forecast from Cisco.  The report puts monthly mobile data usage at 2.6 exabytes for 2014 and predicts that usage will increase more than six-fold by 2018 when global mobile traffic climbs to 15.9 exabytes monthly.

The study attributes the growth to the rising numbers of mobile internet connections, including M2M, as well as personal devices. Cisco estimates the total will exceed 10 billion connections by 2018, nearly 1.5 times the amount of people on Earth (based on UN population predictions).

Cisco also sees the number of global mobile users increasing from 4.1 billion in 2013 to 4.9 billion in 2018, and average mobile data connection speeds will go up from 1.4 Mbps in 2013 to 2.5 Mbps by 2018.

Small cell’s spatial efficiency and lower TCO, coupled with Magnolia Broadband's beam forming technology solutions are key to alleviating the mobile data crunch. According Cooper’s Law that underpinned the recent 3GPP workshop on how to best grow capacity, small cells offered the best return, offering a 56x improvement versus 6x for spectrum efficiency and 3x for additional spectrum.  When incorporating Magnolia Broadband’s beamforming technology solutions, these improvements are even further enhanced.

With the growth in data consumption, connected devices, and mobile applications, carriers need to address The “3 C’s – Capacity, Coverage, Congestion.” The sheer volume of mobile data traffic growth is driving capacity constraints. Coverage issues are arising due to the need for indoor coverage and the fact that 4G base stations cover a smaller area effectively. Coverage needs are also being driven by demand in rural and emerging markets. Congestion issues are being driven by the number of devices connecting to the network at any one time and the amount of signaling traffic driven by mobile applications. In order to address The 3 C’s multiple solutions are coming to market including additional spectrum, spectrum efficiency, mobile content delivery, small cells plus Magnolia Broadband’s solutions, which offers emhancement for all solutions while resulting in enhancing the overall subscriber experience..

Data continues to be a major area of growth for mobile operators. As Cisco reported in their recent Visual Networking Index (VNI) study6, the volume of mobile broadband (MBB) traffic has been doubling every year, reaching 1,577 Petabytes per month7 in 2013 (the equivalent of 500 billion .mp3 files or 800 million hours of streaming HD video8) and is forecast to reach 11,156 Petabytes by 2017. The rate of growth is underlined by the fact that total traffic volumes in 2012 were as high as all prior years combined. Furthermore, this growth hasn’t been isolated to one area – all regions have been showing impressive growth rates. In absolute terms, however, Asia Pacific is the clear leader and is forecast to account for 47% of traffic by 2017.

ENGLEWOOD, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Magnolia Broadband, the inventor of Adaptive Antenna Systems (AAS), a “Beam-forming” technology for wireless smartphones and tablets, said today it has secured $3 million in funding from individual and institutional investors, led by SCP Partners. Magnolia Broadband will use the funding for further development of its AAS technologies for smartphones, tablets, small 3G/4G base stations and Wi-Fi access points.

Osmo Hautanen, Magnolia Broadband’s CEO, said, “With global mobile data traffic forecasted to increase 26-fold over the next 5 years driven by video and multi-media data traffic, Magnolia Broadband’s solutions provide enhanced real time HD video and multimedia experiences which will broaden the range of applications and services that can be shared, creating a highly enhanced mobile broadband experience.” Hautanen added, “SCP Partners has been an outstanding supporter of Magnolia Broadband since its inception. With this additional capital, Magnolia Broadband will further solidify its leadership position by expanding its patent portfolio and advance licensing efforts with wireless network operators around the globe.”

“Magnolia Broadband has been on the forefront of developing technologies which offer significant benefits for both wireless carriers and consumers on quality of service providing faster data throughput, better coverage and wider range both on macro wireless networks as well as Wi-Fi coverage areas," said Yaron Eitan, Chairman of the Board of Magnolia Broadband, Inc., and a Partner at SCP Partners, the company’s largest shareholder, and President of Selway Capital. Furthermore he added, “Magnolia Broadband’s technologies have been valued by leading companies such as Google which acquired over 50 of its patents in 2012.”

http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20130708006316/en/Magnolia-Broadband/SCP-Partners

• As we close out the first quarter of 2013, we see that smartphone data consumption at some operators is averaging close to 1 GB/mo. Some devices are averaging close to 2 GB/mo. As we move into 1GB range along with the family data plans kicking in, you can expect the data tiers to get bigger both in GBs and dollar amount.

Wireless data traffic is expected to grow 66% a year for the next five years. That means, by 2017, monthly mobile data traffic will reach 11.2 exabytes per month, or 13 times what it is right now. Other data points in the report underscore how big the mobile world has become and how quickly it will grow to be much, much bigger. Last year, some 4.3 billion people around the world had mobile devices, a population that will grow by close to a billion in five years.

A new report just released from Cisco states that global traffic on data networks grew by 70% in 2012. Cisco offered a comparison that suggests how big mobile has become: The traffic on mobile data networks in 2012 -- 885 petabytes -- was nearly 12 times greater than total Internet traffic around the world in 2000, back when the web was taking off.

Two-thirds of the world's mobile data traffic will be video by 2017. Mobile video will increase 16-fold between 2012 and 2017, accounting for over 66 percent of total mobile data traffic by the end of the forecast period.

Mobile-connected tablets will generate more traffic in 2017 than the entire global mobile network in 2012. The amount of mobile data traffic generated by tablets in 2017 (1.3 exabytes per month) will be 1.5 times higher than the total amount of global mobile data traffic in 2012 (885 petabytes per month).

The average smartphone will generate 2.7 GB of traffic per month in 2017, an 8-fold increase over the 2012 average of 342 MB per month. Aggregate smartphone traffic in 2017 will be 19 times greater than it is today, with a CAGR of 81 percent.

By 2017, almost 21 exabytes of mobile data traffic will be offloaded to the fixed network by means of Wi-Fi devices and femtocells each month. Without Wi-Fi and femtocell offload, total mobile data traffic would grow at a CAGR of 74 percent between 2012 and 2017 (16-fold growth), instead of the projected CAGR of 66 percent (13-fold growth).

Global mobile data traffic grew 70 percent in 2012. Global mobile data traffic reached 885 petabytes per month at the end of 2012, up from 520 petabytes per month at the end of 2011.

Mobile network connection speeds more than doubled in 2012. Globally, the average mobile network downstream speed in 2012 was 526 kilobits per second (kbps), up from 248 kbps in 2011. The average mobile network connection speed for smartphones in 2012 was 2,064 kbps, up from 1,211 kbps in 2011. The average mobile network connection speed for tablets in 2012 was 3,683 kbps, up from 2,030 kbps in 2011.

In 2012, a fourth-generation (4G) connection generated 19 times more traffic on average than a non-4G connection. Although 4G connections represent only 0.9 percent of mobile connections today, they already account for 14 percent of mobile data traffic.

The top 1 percent of mobile data subscribers generate 16 percent of mobile data traffic, down from 52 percent at the beginning of 2010. According to a mobile data usage study conducted by Cisco, mobile data traffic has evened out over the last year and is now lower than the 1:20 ratio that has been true of fixed networks for several years.

Average smartphone usage grew 81 percent in 2012. The average amount of traffic per smartphone in 2012 was 342 MB per month, up from 189 MB per month in 2011.

Today’s consumers are increasingly demanding not only always-on connectivity, but better service quality and overall experiences. In fact, nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of respondents to Yankee Group’s 2012 US Consumer Survey, December, state that mobile data speeds are important to them and almost the same number (63 percent) want to be connected all the time.

“In developing countries, citizens are increasingly using mobile phones to create new livelihoods and enhance their lifestyles, while governments are using them to improve service delivery and citizen feedback mechanisms,” according to the “Information and Communications for Development 2012: Maximizing Mobile” report.

“Mobile communications offer major opportunities to advance human and economic development – from providing basic access to health information to making cash payments, spurring job creation, and stimulating citizen involvement in democratic processes,” commented World Bank vice president for Sustainable Development Rachel Kyte.

The third in the World Bank’s series on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for Development, this latest report on mobile phones and technologies analyzes the growth and evolution of mobile telephony and the rise of data-based services, including apps, to handheld devices. The consequences for development of the emerging “app economy” are investigated, particularly as they pertain to agriculture, health, financial services and government, as is how it’s changing approaches to entrepreneurship and employment, the authors explain.

“The mobile revolution is right at the start of its growth curve: mobile devices are becoming cheaper and more powerful while networks are doubling in bandwidth roughly every 18 months and expanding into rural areas,” noted Tim Kelly, lead ICT policy specialist at the World Bank and one of the report’s authors.

Examples cited in the World Bank-infoDev press release include:

In India, the state of Kerala’s mGovernment program has deployed over 20 applications and facilitated more than 3 million interactions between the government and citizens since its launch in December 2010.

The global mobile industry revenue is on track to hit $1.5 trillion. Ity should be noted that industry revenues have tripled in the last 10 years. Mobile operator’s revenue reached a new milestone at the end of 2011. The total global mobile operator revenue exceeded $1 trillion for the first time. The operator profits have more than doubled in the last 10 years. The trifecta of fast broadband networks, well-designed mobile computing devices, and the insatiable supply of content, applications, and services has unleashed consumer demand for more like never before.  

If we look at the history of the mobile industry, the first generation was primarily focused on voice and this era persisted for a good 10-15 years before 2G messaging and very basic data services were introduced. A decade later, data services started to become more interesting as 3G networks enabled faster access speeds and new applications. When Apple released iPhone in 2007, followed by Google’s Android in 2008, the industry was turned on its head.  The implications  was apparent at the time, tthat these far-reaching new devices were foretelling how impactful DATA was becoming for people in both their work and play.   Today, data makes up the majority of all wireless devices usage.  

The software Google's new patents relate to can be embedded into any mobile broadband device, Hautanen added. Google, however, did not acquire the software, which remains the property of Magnolia and will remain available to mobile device vendors and chipset companies.

The company is currently expanding this technology to improve streaming video and peer-to-peer applications on tablets and other mobile broadband devices. It says it will use the proceeds from the patent sale to finance ongoing research and development.

Google's latest buy comes after the company recently picked up a large number of patents through its acquisition of Motorola Mobility, which is currently locked in a high-profile patent battle with Apple, and is under investigation for patent abuse in the EU.

by: PC Magazine's Angela Moscaritolo

According to Magnolia CEO Osmo Hautanen, the software Google's newly acquired patents relate to can be "embedded into any mobile broadband device." The software is sold to mobile device vendors and chipset companies, according to Hautanen.

Interestingly, Google didn't acquire the software, which remains under the ownership of Magnolia. Whether the companies entered into a licensing agreement, however, was not divulged.

A host of major companies have been going on a patent-buying spree lately. Last year, Apple and Research In Motion were among a few companies that bought Nortel's patents for $4.5 billion. Microsoft recently closed a deal to acquire about 800 patents from AOL for $1 billion. Even Google's $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility was motivated by a desire to own that company's patent portfolio.

Who can blame any of the companies? Over the last couple of years, the mobile space has exploded with patent lawsuits, forcing firms to find protection wherever possible. CNET has contacted Google for comment on the patent portfolio purchase. We will update this story when we have more information.