MikeHansen
on
"Through all these cities and all these towns
It’s in my blood and its all around …"
Rascal Flatts – Life is a Highway.
... and apparently some folks ride it all night long.
According to data provided in the FCC Technical Paper Mobile Broadband: The Benefits of Additional Spectrum, the forecast for growth in mobile data usage over the next 5 years will exceed 35x of 2009 usage. The chart below is an extract from the report showing data collected from a number of industry sources.
So what is this data? Essentially, the increase in data is due to multimedia content being accessed via highly capable mobile devices - audio, voice, pictures, video etc.
There is plenty of data indicated in the FCC report to support these claims : AT&T, the exclusive US carrier of the iPhone, has seen mobile network traffic increase 5,000 percent over past 3 years. Further quotes from AT&T state that about 35 percent of that traffic right now is video and that's growing at a rate of 70 percent per year.
For Intermec mobile products (CN50, CN3, etc) already enabled with 2G, 3G and WiFi connectivity, as well as being multimedia rich (cameras, scanners, audio capabilities) ,it means carriers are predicting customers are going to use these types of features on an increasing basis. Good news - where we are going there are definitely going to be roads.
In order to create growth in the economy spectrum is becoming available from the FCC via the newly announced National Broadband Plan. The main two goals of this national plan cover high-speed access to the Internet via both wired and wireless technologies. Goal two is stated as such: the United States should lead the world in mobile innovation, with the fastest and most extensive wireless networks of any nation.
With wireless one is able to be mobile and thus do what ever purpose it is that one must do all the while remaining in contact with whom or whatever. The technology fulfills a purpose. The type of technology also sets the cost to fulfill the purpose. Once you have the purpose in mind you can categorize the wireless technology – and that’s what I want to do next.
