Outnumbered

The latest Global Data Traffic Forecast from Cisco says that this year the number of mobile connected devices ('phones, tablets etc) will exceed the world's population. They also predict that there will be over 10 billion mobile-connected devices in 2016, including machine-to-machine modules, greatly exceeding the world's population at that time (7.3 billion). Adding in the speed/quality benefits available from 4G technology the rise in data consumption is likely to cause more problems for mobile operators already struggling to cope with demand. Although 4G connections represent only 0.2 percent of mobile connections today, they already account for 6 percent of mobile data traffic. CISCO think that global mobile traffic will increase 18-fold between 2011 and 2016.