• 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.

Mobile patent grants as a percentage of the total patent grants in a given year have risen significantly for the US market indicating the importance innovators attach to mobile in their business. In the US, one out of every five patent granted in 2012 was related to mobile. Less than a decade ago, this number was less than 10%. The European market has seen lower growth relative to the US market. Roughly one out of every ten patents granted in Europe are mobile related.

The growth of 4G networks around the world is boosting average connection speeds to 3-4 Mbps and on some networks upwards of 14 Mbps, paving the way for high-definition video to grow more commonplace on mobile networks, according to Roman Kikta, author of "The Wireless Internet Crash Course".   Kikta points out that leading edge technology enhancements such as Magnolia Broadband's Adaptive Antenna Technology (AAT) is showing to increase carriers data networks performance by doubling connectivity speeds, while improving coverage and capacity by 40%.  Kikta states that AAT will benefit mobile carriers as they address Video, which accounted for half of mobile traffic in 2012, and is expected to make up over 75% of it within the next few years.  Kikta cites HD cameras on devices and consumers needs for uploading to their social networks as key contributors to this mobile data consumption. Furthermore, Video chats, GPS apps, handheld games, and other applications could add to the demand for mobile networks as well.

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.

The way to win in mobile is to solve an exceptionally difficult problem. Apple first did it by streamlining the mobile experience through an integrated OS and app-discovery and installation experience. Google then went a step further and crunched mountains of data to make mobile services breathtakingly powerful. The next big mobile company needs to be prepared to do something equally hard. And probably different.

Yet there's no sign that Google has stopped pushing itself to do even harder things. And that is why I think Google is both the mobile company of the year in 2012 and 2013.

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.

Roll-on the era of uplink traffic!! Legacy enterprise software providers such as SAP and cloud vendors such as Workday are both realizing the necessity of the mobile cloud, building out the capabilities to cater to the mobile explosion.

Roll-on the era of uplink traffic!! Legacy enterprise software providers such as SAP and cloud vendors such as Workday are both realizing the necessity of the mobile cloud, building out the capabilities to cater to the mobile explosion.

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.

“Everything can and will be wirelessly connected. The smartphone will be the platform, the hub, command central for you home, your healthcare, your car, your wallet… People depend on (technology because) it enriches their lives versus making it harder," states Cathy Coughlin, Chief Marketing Officer, AT&T.

The average UK consumer now sends 50 texts per week which has more doubled in four years with over 150 billion text messages sent in 2011.  Almost another ninety minutes per week is spent accessing social networking sites and e-mail, or using a mobile to access the internet, while for the first time ever time spent on calls on both fixed and mobile phones has declined.    Ofcom's Communications Market Report 2012 shows that traditional forms of communications are declining in popularity, with the overall time spent talking on the phone falling by 5% in 2011.   This reflects a 10% fall in the volume of calls from landlines, and for the first time ever, a fall in the volume of mobile calls (by just over 1%) in 2011.    Teenagers and young adults are leading these changes in communication habits, increasingly socialising with friends and family online and through text messages despite saying they prefer to talk face to face.   

These changes also reflect the rapid increase in ownership of internet connected devices, such as tablets and smartphones.   Tablet ownership has jumped from 2% to 11% in 12 months, while one in ten UK adults now has an e-reader.    Two fifths of UK adults now own a smartphone, with the same proportion saying their phone is the most important device for accessing the internet.    Smartphones are also affecting people's shopping habits, encouraging online bargain hunting or Robo (Research offline buy online) shopping with over half of smartphone users claiming to use their phone in some way when out shopping.   Internet connected 'smart TVs' are also growing in popularity with 5% of UK households now owning one, giving consumers the ability to 'Turf' - both watch TV and surf the web .   The report reveals that UK households now own on average three different types of internet-enabled device such as a laptop, smartphone or internet-enabled games console with 15% owning six or more devices.   James Thickett, Ofcom's Director of Research, said: 'Our research reveals that in just a few short years, new technology has fundamentally changed the way that we communicate. Talking face to face or on the phone are no longer the most common ways for us to interact with each other.   'In their place, newer forms of communications are emerging which don't require us to talk to each other especially among younger age groups. This trend is set to continue as technology advances and we move further into the digital age.'

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