Information technology and society: by 2017, 85% of the world’s population to get access to high-speed mobile Internet

According to the report “The pace of technology, joining the society”, prepared by Ericsson company on the market of cellular communications and data traffic, 85% of the world’s population will get access to 3G-Internet in 2017, and the number of mobile connections will be nearly 9 billion compared to 6 billion at the end of 2011(excluding M2M connections).

According to Ericsson forecast, the number of mobile broadband connections in the world will get 5 billion till 2012 compared to 1 billion at the end of 2011. For many people around the world the mobile phone is the major device to access the Internet.

Ericsson also predicts that by 2007 half of the population of the Earth will have access to LTE/4G networks. The number of mobile connections with the use of smart phones will be about 3 billion in 2017 compared to 700 million in 2011.

The total volume of mobile data traffic continues to grow – in the period of Q1 2011 to Q1 2012 its volume has doubled, mostly due to video content. Smart phones remain a driving force of the growth of data traffic. According to Ericsson forecast, during the period from 2011 to 2017 the volume of mobile data traffic will increase by 15 times.

Information, presented in the report, illustrates the differences between countries and regions. In terms of the net increase of the number of connections in Q1 2012 China has become the leader – 39 million of new connections, the second place takes India with a result of 25 million. The total number of connections in Asia-Pacific region was 90 million; in Africa this figure is equal to 30 million.

Over the past year the number of mobile connections in Russia has grown to 227, 6 million. According to Ericsson, in Russia there are 14 million of mobile broadband users, of which 49% are users of USB-modems. At the same time 86% of total mobile data traffic in Russia is on the network 3G. Mobile penetration in our country at the end of last year was 99.5%.