Global telecom technology and service provider, Ericsson has predicted in its latest Traffic and Market Data Report that the number of mobile broadband subscriptions will rise to an absurd-sounding 5 billion+ by 2016.

Though the number of such mobile broadband subscriptions was earlier expected to cross 1 billion by the end of this year, it is now being estimated that there will be about 900 million such subscriptions by the end of the year. The growth forecasts for 2016 are built on an expected year-on-year growth rate of 60%.

Mobile data traffic is likely to double this year. This is mainly due to the proliferation and availability of new devices such as smartphones and tablets. Smartphone traffic alone is expected to triple this year.

According to the report, users living on less than 1% of the earth’s land area (urban regions with over 1,000 people per square kilometer), will generate around 60% of this traffic. Video consumption on mobile devices is likely to be the main driver of this growth.

Ericsson also expects that the traffic generated by these advanced smartphones will rise 12-fold, and roughly equal mobile PC generated traffic by 2016.

Predicted growth of mobile data consumption (in PetaBytes)

The service will be provided by ‘The Cloud’ in association with Arqiva.

Wi-fi connections will be available on all 15 railway stations of the network on its platforms but not in the tunnels, reports CNet.

The Wi-fi connection will initially be available for free to all users for the first 15 minutes and after that they will be charged at the rate of £2 for 24 hours.

iPhone users with service from O2 will be able to use the service for free and will be automatically connected whenever they are within range.

The Cloud also intends to attract more mobile phone companies to tie-up with them for this service by providing advertisements and brand placements.

Services such as train timetables, delay updates and transit maps will be available for free. VoIP calls through services like Skype, Fring or Apple’s FaceTime will also be free.

Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, has been trying hard to get such a service available on the London Underground before the 2012 Olympics, but so far he has not succeeded.

The addition of Wi-Fi on underground train networks could significantly increase the amount of mobile Internet usage in the UK’s major cities as commuters would be very likely to use the services to pass time during their commute.

The new service can be accessed at:

0.facebook.com/

While the service is similar to Facebook mobile in most respects, it will not include photos on the site. Photographs will be just one click away, but users will be charged for accessing them at the regular data rates.

Other than viewing pictures, users will be able to carry on most of the regular activities they do on Facebook such as updating their status, viewing news feeds, posting comments and writing on a friend’s wall etc.

0.facebook.com has been created with the aim of overcoming two of the major obstacles of using social networks through mobile handsets: the speed (or lack) of using social sites on a mobile device and the cost of accessing such media-rich services on uncapped mobile data plans.

Facebook has partnered with mobile operators to deliver this service. Users will not pay any data charges to access this service. They will only be charged the regular data tariffs if they wish to view a photo or if they wish to move away from 0.facebook to browse another site. In both cases, they will receive a notification informing them that they will be charged for doing so.

Initially, 0.facebook will be available only in 45 developing countries and territories in collaboration with over 50 mobile operators. The service will be introduced in a few more places shortly.

Facebook already has over 100 million active mobile users with over 200 mobile operators spread across 80 countries. With this move they are sure to expand their reach even further.

The study was conducted across 5 of the top mobile network providers in the U.K. over a period of 60 days, across 150 locations in the country to measure the speed of mobile data connections during peak hours. The operators who were considered for the study were O2, Orange, Vodafone, 3, and T-Mobile.

The results reveal that in the month of January 2010, O2 was the most efficient mobile network operator. They offered access to a web page within an average time of 1.7 seconds in London, which is about 30% faster than the slowest of the operators. However, in other cities the top position was shared by all the operators.

For music downloads, however, O2 was the fastest in 12 out of 20 cities. They were also the runners up in 4 of the remaining cities.

The studies were conducted between 10.00 a.m. and 10.00 p.m. on all 7 days of the week to reduce the margin of error.

Apart from London, some of the other cities covered included Edinburgh, Leeds, Bristol, New Castle, Liverpool and Sheffield.

Studies like this are not just about heaping accolades on faster networks. Simon Page of SIRODA says, “Regularly testing in this way helps identify areas for investment.”

O2 had invested 30 million pounds for 40 new sites before last Christmas. Obviously the investment has proven worthwhile.

Facebook Zero will be a stripped down, text-only version of the original social network. It will run on a lower bandwidth. The site will not allow access photos or videos. It will be a text-only site.

The popular social network, which has been growing rapidly, claims they now have over 100 million users a month on mobile alone, and this figure is expected to grow even further. This new version will help Facebook to free-up a lot of critical bandwidth.

Facebook Zero is likely to be offered to users free of charge, and then interested users can change over to a paying model with a multimedia service.

Almost half the time spent by users online on their mobiles is dedicated to Facebook. In December 2009, users in U.K. spent 2.2 billion minutes on Facebook through their mobile phones.

According to Brandee Barker, a spokesperson at Facebook, “[Facebook] are discussing it… as an option to make Facebook on the mobile Web available to everyone anywhere and allow operators to encourage more mobile Internet usage.”

A slimmed down version of Facebook, called Facebook Lite, is already available in places with slow Internet connections, such as in third world countries.

Facebook Zero will be launched in the coming weeks.

The demands on the mobile Internet have now become so great, that there is a strong possibility of the networks collapsing if something is not done soon to relieve the pressure on them.

Signs of trouble on the operator side were first discussed at the Mobile Search Conference in 2007. Back then, Dr Valentina Rivoira from Telecom Italia had said that operators have limited bandwidth and don’t necessarily want consumers to download large files and use the mobile Internet like they do the desktop. In 2007, this meant that tariffs would remain high till providers could improve their own bandwidth.

Now, a report released by The Cloud and Exane BNP Paribas claims that mobile Internet traffic is close to the point of breaking down.

According to the report, the mobile Internet has been growing at the rate of ten times each year for a while now, and if this continues, the entire system could collapse by the end of the year, or at least will struggle to survive.

The report says that smartphones have changed the way people use their mobiles. Handsets are now used for several purposes, from streaming music to down loading files, photos and video clips and even to watch TV.

It has also been suggested that by 2015 the demand on the mobile networks in Britain will be almost 100 times more per user than it is now.

According to this report the solution to this pending crisis lies in shifting from the mobile 3G networks to roaming Wi-Fi – a rather convenient solution for The Cloud, which is a Wi-Fi provider.

Steve Nicholson CEO, of The Cloud explains that ultimately consumers are interested in how fast they can access the net, for various functions. They would be willing to shift to any device that allows them this access.

This could mean a major shift in plans for mobile service providers, and potential losses in revenues as well, which might be incentive enough to resist any such change.

eBay reports that the amount of shopping done through mobile handsets saw significant growth during the last holiday season.

Considering the importance of e-commerce in everyday life, it was only a matter of time before mobile shopping, or m-commerce as it is being called, followed suit.

According to the report from eBay, about 6 million people across 165 countries, have installed an eBay application on their mobile phones, and eBay receives 750,000 unique mobile visits daily.

1.5 million purchases were made via m-commerce on eBay during the 2009 Christmas holiday season, which is almost 3 times the level seen during the same period in 2008.

The total revenue generated via eBay mobile applications in 2009 was reported to be worth half a billion U.S. dollars, and a new transaction took place every 2 seconds. This alone should be enough information to make a number of companies rethink their mobile strategy

Consumers are not just using mobile phones to make small purchases of items of daily use. Some very high-ticket luxury purchases were also made via mobile. Examples cited by eBay include a 23-foot deck boat, a Boston grand piano and a 1966 Chevrolet Corvette.

In a separate report, mobile phone manufacturer, Motorola, found that the usage and impact of mobile shopping technologies exploded during the 2009 holiday shopping season. The survey identified that 64 percent of Gen Y (age 18 to 34) shoppers used their mobile phones for in-store shopping-related activities during the holiday season.

With the ever-increasing amount of news pointing to the growth of mobile in just the first 2 weeks of the year, one wonders if 2010 might finally be the real year of mobile?

Predictions about the growth of the mobile Internet have actually come true, and what is most striking about the phenomenal growth of the mobile Web is the fact that it is growing fastest in developing countries, like those in Africa and South Asia.

Norway-based company, Opera Software, which develops Web browsers for desktops, mobiles and Wii consoles has reported that they recorded over 41.7 million users in November 2009, which is 5.3% higher than the previous month and 154% higher than November 2008. Of this, the most remarkable growth was seen in Africa, South East Asia, South Asia and East Asia.

The report, which is released every month, showed that in the top ten countries in Africa, the number of page views went up by 374%, the number of unique users went up by 177% and the amount of data transfer went up by 183% between November 2008 and November 2009.

They also reported that the top 10 countries for mobile web growth worldwide were Russia, Indonesia, India, China, Ukraine, South Africa, U.S.A, U.K., Vietnam and Poland, in that order.

Use of the latest technology now available was found to be continually going up, even in the times of recession, as this technology can help people overcome their day-to-day hardships.

The Internet mobility company Novarra, has released data that clearly highlights this fact. According to Novarra, mobile page views of sites related to the X-Factor went up by 15,000 percent between September and December, and they reached a peak during the final.

Incidentally, mobile traffic and page views also peaked every Saturday and Sunday when the live weekly show and eviction were being held.

During the final, which was held on 13th December, 19 million people watched the show and 10 million votes were sent in. The mobile page views also went up by 55 percent compared to the previous week, and were the highest recorded during the entire duration of the reality show.

Mobile Web users also seemed to have clear favourites. Contrary to expectations ‘Jedward’ did not generate much traffic, and in fact the popularity of the show increased after their exit by 122 percent, and a further 85 percent the week after that.

The second highest page views, on the other hand, were recorded on Sunday 25th October when early favorite Danyl Johnson struggled to get through.

These findings could make a clearly case for the popularity of the mobile Internet. However, Novarra has not released any absolute numbers. Hence, we don’t actually know if the 15,000% mobile traffic increase they’re referring to was just a jump from 1 page view to 15,000 page views or something more significant.

Mobile devices are predicted to “Eclipse the PC” next year. While the report does not actually predict the death of the Personal Computer, it does say that the mobile Web will grow, to the extent that it no longer remains subservient or secondary to the PC. Mobiles will become the primary source of Web browsing for many.

It is expected that the number of mobile Web users will cross the 1 billion mark in 2010, while the number of PC users will be around 1.3 billion. The growth rate of mobile devices will be 2.5 times that of the PC.

The growing numbers of smart phones, such as the iPhone, Blackberry and Google Android powered devices, along with good mobile operating systems, are responsible for this explosive growth.

200 million more smart phones are expected to hit the markets in 2010.

IDC also predicts that the iPhone, which currently has about 1,00,000 applications, will have about 3,00,000 applications by the end of the next year, while Android, which has just 10,000 applications will have 50,000 to 75,000 applications by then, further boosting the mobile Internet.

Google’s open operating system, Android, will also provide stiff competition to the iPhone.

The typically over-hyped Apple tablet, which they have called the ‘iPad’, and Microsoft’s own tablet device, which is expected to launch in the coming year as well, will further contribute to this growth.

Mobile analysts from Informa have predicted that mobile online usage is set to grow to 25 times its present levels by 2012.

While this sounds like great news for mobile operators, the revenues are not likely to grow at the same rate. In fact, it is expected that mobile revenues may only double in the same time period.

Also, mobile networks are not yet geared to accommodate such a sudden growth spurt. This may very well lead to widespread mobile data traffic jams in time to come.

Dimitris Mavrakis, an analyst with Informa, says, “The decoupling of revenues from traffic presented operators with a problem because it deprived the phone firms of cash at a time when their networks were in need of upgrading.” He further informs that the hardware required to build the next generation mobile networks that could handle such high traffic will not be easily available until late 2010, thus further aggravating the problems of mobile operators.

Graham Carey of Bytemobile said that the fact that many laptops and smartphones are always in the ‘on’ mode further compounds these problems. The flat rate pricing which had been introduced to encourage users to access the mobile net, now seems to be having a boomerang effect, as users are using it extensively while mobile operators are not earning as much as they would, if the users were being billed at an hourly rate.

For now, mobile operators are using methods of optimization, like shrinking files, wherever possible without affecting the quality of the download.

John Spindler, Vice President Product Management at network optimization firm ADC, said that the unequal distribution and sudden spikes in mobile data use were also adding to the problem.

The study conducted by Scarborough Research has shocked most people by revealing that as a matter of fact it is the working mom who makes the maximum use of mobile phones.

A working mom has been classified as a lady who has a full time job and at least one child at home.

Thinking about it, it does make sense that these multi-tasking women should make full use of the technology available to them, in order to be able to coordinate the several tasks that need to be done by them. This way they can be reasonably sure that things are in control back home, when they are away at work or commuting between their homes and place of work.

According to the study, the average mobile telecoms bill incurred by a working mom is $94 which is 21% more than that of the average mobile user in the U.S.

What is even more of an eye-opener is the fact that these working moms do not use the mobile phone only to make and receive calls and messages, but they are also likely to download content from the Internet on their mobile phones.

These ladies have also been found to be responsible for the purchase and use of several other high tech gadgets in their homes, which would help them to do save time by doing their work faster and thus enabling them to accomplish more in a given span of time.

AOL acquired Third Screen Media, a mobile advertising company, in 2007 for $80 million. According to sources in the know, the new CEO of AOL, Tim Armstrong, and the head of the advertising department Jeff Levick are planning to either shut down the mobile advertising network or just letting all their contracts lapse over a period of time.

It has been reported that AOL is not renewing the deals they have with their existing publishers for their mobile ad network. Instead, these publishers are quietly being allowed to go to AOL’s competitors. AOL has also not put out any new publisher proposals, which obviously means that they are losing a lot of clients, and surprisingly this does not seem to be bothering them, which again indicates an intention to discontinue the business.

A number of current employees of Third Screen Media are reportedly out in the field, hunting for new jobs.

It is believed that AOL will instead focus on developing mobile content and will also rebuild their mobile ad technology, which will then be able to service other AOL-owned properties.

This is certainly a good move at this stage, since AOL will be turning into a separate entity from Time Warner shortly. They will then have businesses like mobile web publishing, AOL Mail, MapQuest, AIM and iPhone apps, which they can monetise.

AOL could always rebuild their mobile advertising business again later with even better technology when the market turns and demand for mobile advertising really picks up.

According to Nielsen, mobile Internet use has grown from 5.8 million to 7.3 million between the second and third quarters of this year. This is a jump of 25% as compared to only a 3% growth in the number of users accessing the net through the PC, during the same time period.

7.3 million users represents just 12% of the total market. Many believe the number of mobile Internet users to be closer to 28%. However, the higher percentage includes one-off visitors who try the mobile Internet and never return, whereas Nielsen’s numbers could be excluding these users completely due to their research methodology.

The type of searches conducted through mobile phones are quite different from those conducted through the PC, and while Google is the most popular website used by PC users, mobile users prefer to use the following sites in order of priority:

1. BBC News
2. Google Search
3. BBC Weather
4. Facebook
5. Windows Live / Hotmail
6. BBC Sport
7. eBay
8. Yahoo! Mail
9. Sky Sports
10. Gmail

It was found that the mobile is mostly used to for instant information needs such as news, weather, sports. Information regarding entertainment and commerce was usually sought through desktops.

Interestingly, Google Search has only 23% reach among mobile device users, compared to 79% for desktop users, according to Nielsen.

Expectedly, the reports also revealed that the average age of the mobile Internet user was less than that of the PC user. While about 25% of handset mobile users were between 15 to 24 years of age, only 16% of PC users were in that age group. On the other hand, 23% of desktop users are over 55 years of age while 12% of mobile internet users are over 55 years, which many will find surprisingly high!

Mobile Internet users access the Web about 7 times a month on an average, and each session lasts for about 10 minutes.

Speaking to the BBC, Kent Ferguson, a senior analyst at Nielsen Online, says that the sudden spurt in the mobile Internet usage is due to a variety of factors. The introduction of flat rate tariffs by mobile operators and better networks are among them.

Also, Mobile manufacturing companies have introduced more user-friendly handsets that encourage consumers to access the Internet through their mobile. Buttons for direct access to Google and other popular social networks are placed on new phones to push this further.

The mobile phone company 3 launched a Facebook phone recently that allows users to easily access the social network as well as Skype, Windows Live Messenger and Last.fm by directly integrating the service into the phone.

Expectedly, the U.S. has the largest number of mobile Internet users, solely due to the large population of consumers. In 2006, they had 22.4 million people, using the mobile web, while now, they have about 40 million such users i.e. about 16% of all mobile users in the country.

Among the 16 countries studied in this survey, U.K. and Italy follow closely at second and third place with 12.9% and 11.9% respectively. Indonesia had the lowest number of mobile net users, with only 1.1% of mobile users, accessing the net through their mobile phones.

This gigantic leap which has occurred in the use of the mobile web, is likely to be due to a combination of factors such as, more user friendly mobile phones, which make it easier to access the net, the availability of high speed networks, and lowered costs due to the availability of various data packages offered by the companies.

In spite of the large jump in the number of mobile web users, there is still scope for further growth of this industry, as it was found that almost 95 million Americans pay for use of the mobile web, but most of them still do not use it. This may be either due to lack of interest in this particular facility, or the lack of awareness, of its availability in the various media packages they have chosen.

Nielsen Mobile has further revealed that of the users of the first generation iPhone, almost 82% use the mobile internet facility, which is 5 times higher than the likelihood of the average mobile user using this option.

The second generation iPhone promises to bring with it even better facilities.

Among other handsets, the Motorola RAZR, is the most popular in the U.S. and Nokia’s N95 is the most popular in U.K. In India China and Russia too, it is the Nokia handsets which are the most frequently used.

The most common uses of the mobile web, are to execute bank transactions, check email and socialize through the social networks. Yahoo! and Google are the most popular internet sites visited through the mobile.

However, while desktop users, visit almost 100 sites per month, on an average, mobile web users visit about 6.4 sites per month in the U.S., 5.5 sites per month in U.K. and 8.2 sites per month in Italy.

$5 billion were generated from use of the mobile web in 2007, and already $1.7 billion, have been generated in the first quarter of this year.

This growth in the use of the mobile web, is an indicator for big businesses to start investing in this as a marketing tool.

Price plans for Vodafone mobile start at £25 per month. Users will be able to access up to 500MB per month, so long as they adhere to the ‘fair usage policy’, which means that teenagers who download too much music or video could get barred from using the service in the future.

In the past, Vodafone users had to buy their Internet access bundle separately for £7.5 per month, and they could only use a maximum of 120 MB per month. Mobile service provider O2 also provides similar services to its iPhone users, but Vodafone will be the first company to offer free Internet access to all users irrespective of the type of handset they use.

This move is expected to fetch them a larger share in the mobile market, which is already over-crowded. Vodafone’s head of mobile Internet and content services, Al Russell says, “Many people already have phones that can browse the internet, so they do not need to buy new ones.”

Until recently, mobile Internet access tariffs were steep and limits on the amount of data one could access made consumers vary of mobile Internet services. Most users are also not familiar with the usage of mobile phones to access the internet.

However, Russell says that the staff at Vodafone stores and their helplines will explain to their clients how their handsets can be easily used to access the Internet, and that now they would not have to worry about the costs either.

This announcement comes around the same time that Vodafone signed deals with Apple to sell iPhones in Australia, India, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Portugal, Czech Republic, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey.