4G: 1 billion subscriptions in 2017

Here is who will give the balm to the heart telecom OEMs who today are in turmoil. Success for smartphones did not weaken causing mechanically an explosion of consumption data and therefore the networks need still more powerful wireless broadband.

According to a study by the world's number one mobile networks, the number of subscriptions taken out by owners of "smartphones" will reach 4.5 billion by 2018, compared with 1.2 billion in 2012. At the end of last year, the Swedish group not only forecasting 3.3 billion subscriptions to the horizon 2018.

At the same time, data traffic will experience global growth multiplied by 12 by late 2018 due to the increasingly widespread use of online video.

Its progress should be in the order of 60% per year by late 2018. "On some networks, video consumption totalled on average 2.6 GB / subscription / month. However, despite the popularity of the video, it is not necessarily on heavy data applications that users spend the most time. With, in some cases, an average of 85 minutes per day, social networks are indeed the most popular applications of consumers", says Ericsson.

 

Hence, even the obligation, operators to accelerate the transition to 4 G (LTE). In the first quarter, 20 of the 110 million new mobile subscriptions are 4G. And "in 2018, almost 60% of the world's population can benefit from LTE services. According to our forecasts, the LTE subscriptions should exceed one billion in 2017 ", explains Douglas Gilstrap, Senior Vice President and Director of the Ericsson strategy.

There are operators who should be reassured because 4G must enable them to finally promote their pipes in a context of price declines.

 

The OEM recalls also quite rightly that "the performance of networks is the main factor of customer loyalty, to the quality/price ratio.". Message received from the operators?

In total, Ericsson recorded 6.4 billion mobile subscriptions in the first quarter in the world, average penetration of 90%. It reaches 132% in Central Europe and West and only 56 per cent in India.

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