By 2013 it is expected to reach an overwhelming 58%. The analyst firm expects Femtocells deployment to help operators offload up to 8% of total mobile traffic to fixed networks via end-user broadband lines.
The report finds that mobile voice minutes of use (MoU) in the home environment will approach 42% of total mobile voice traffic by the end of 2008. As the price gap between fixed and mobile calls narrows mobile voice usage at home will gradually increase to reach 49% by 2013. The office environment will come in second position with a 30% market share, while only 9% of calls will be initiated on the move, when walking, driving, or on the train or bus, and the remaining 21% of calls will be generated from other public environments.
Mobile data usage is also expected to increase over the coming years, thanks to the aggressive flat rate data plans pushed by mobile operators, the rollout of mobile broadband networks and most importantly the advances in mobile terminal software. In particular, advanced user interfaces are leading to the proliferation of new type of smartphones and mobile internet devices, including Apple’s iPhone and Google’s G1.
2007 was a watershed year for operators in terms of their strategy regarding the development of new non-voice services for their customers. Malik Saadi, Principal Analyst at Informa, commented: “While mobile operators continue to develop their own services and strategies around applications such as music, games, TV and video, there was a realisation during 2007 that a far greater opportunity exists in providing unrestricted broadband access to the internet.”
“In the same way that voice traffic has moved from old fixed line telephony service PSTN to mobile, there is reason to believe that a significant percentage of Internet traffic generation will move away from fixed personal computers to mobile devices including mobile handsets, mobile Internet devices (MIDs) and connected notebooks,” he continued.