The number of mobile subscribers will increase from 3.5 billion in 2008 to more than 5 billion by 2013. By that time, everyone should be able to gain equal access to the network and freely use communication tools for multiple levels of correspondence. Lifestyles and approaches to work will change profoundly as our world becomes a truly networked society. At this point in its evolution, Mobile Broadband will have entered into a rapid development trajectory. Huawei predicts that by 2013, the number of Mobile Broadband subscribers will exceed 2 billion, including 1.6 billion new subscribers, accounting for 80% of new broadband subscribers.
However, before any of this can be achieved, we must examine four key areas in which inconsistent but extraordinary development influences the rapid evolution of Mobile Broadband:
The influence of New Technologies on Services and Applications
As Mobile Broadband evolves, terminal users expect a more personalized experience. Information technology, particularly the emergence of web-oriented architecture, Web 2.0, and the development of widgets, have helped greatly. These technologies have improved the resolution of lightweight business development needs for mobile terminals, overcome the drawbacks of a poor interactive experience between users and mobile terminals, and enabled traditional enterprise and numerous Internet applications on mobile terminals, such as Google and eBay, considerably enriching Mobile Broadband services. For true Internet openness, future services and service platforms must be reshaped into an open cooperative ecosystem to achieve a personalized, community oriented, and user-generated content (UGC) business model.
The introduction of Large-screen and High-performance Intelligent Terminals
Breakthrough developments in large-screen and high-performance intelligent terminals, and the rapid diffusion of laptops and data cards, have laid a solid foundation for Mobile Broadband and mobile Internet development. The iPhone emerged as the biggest dark horse in the mobile phone field and iPhone and iPod touch-based App Stores have become the hottest digital content sales platform. In coming years, we can expect to see many new intelligent terminals emerge introducing increasingly intuitive platforms, enhanced man-machine interaction, and representing both revolutionary change and an opportunity for mobile terminal business within the industry chain.
The Increase in Flexible Pricing Strategies
Flexible price and packaging strategies have been widely adopted by operators around the world as a result of their better understanding and clearer segmentation of end-users. To compete, operators are compelled to offer affordable packages. However, unlike Fixed Broadband, Mobile Broadband's network construction and transmission costs, coupled with spectrum resource restrictions, make monthly flat-rate pricing strategies with unlimited access, all but impossible. In addition to the traditional mode of charging end-users (forward charging), chargeback for service providers (including e-commerce transaction, advertisement, and rental fees) has become an important business model. Chargeback has evolved into a multi-sided business model.
The Bottlenecks of Carrier Network Deployment
Technology platforms are in a state of flux. HSPA technology has been deployed on a massive global scale and is now approaching maturity. Some CDMA operators have switched to GSMA, and Qualcomm has abandoned UMB in favor of LTE. Developments like these confirm a trend toward LTE and LTE Advanced for all mainstream network evolution. Theoretical downstream peak rates currently reach 150 Mb/s for LTE and 1 Gb/s for LTE Advanced. However, the majority of the world's networks remain incapable of smooth (software) migration to LTE, which is why bottlenecks to network evolution occur.
