Chief Exec of Ericsson, Carl-Henric Svanberg, has said he expects the number of mobile subscriptions to hit 6.5bn by 2013. He has also said that he is expecting internet broadband usage to hit about 2.5bn, of which two-thirds would be “mobile broadband”.
Of course, there is a link from his predictions to where his company comes in – all that extra capacity that is going to be needed on the Mobile Networks could come from Ericsson. To that end he also stated that Ericsson would be spending about $25bn USD over the next 5 years on R&D – presumably to deliver the kind of next-gen solutions that will manage both the capacity and QoS that are going to be demanded.
Personally, I can see the mobile broadband usage stats hitting these dizzy heights, IF the current rate of sales continues. Of course, “mobile broadband” will mean something entirely different in 5 years time – that is to say, the technology underlying it will have changed. Will it be LTE, or some other next-gen bearer? Only time will tell.
[Via: International Herald Tribune]