Ericsson Report Predicts Mobile Data Traffic To Grow Tenfold by 2016

Swedish telecoms manufacturer Ericsson predicts a tenfold increase in data traffic over the next five years, mainly driven by mobile video technology through tablets and smartphones. This, however, is a smaller growth prediction than Cisco has announced, therefore it will not be a ‘data tsunami’ that will swamp networks. This increase represents a 60% year-on-year growth in the next five years for Ericsson, which provides technology and services to telecom operators around the globe and claims that more than 40% of the world’s mobile traffic passed through its networks.

According to the report, total smartphone traffic is expected to triple during 2011 to 900 million. This is calibrated to users living on less than 1% of the earth’s land area are expected to generate around 60% of mobile traffic by 2016, the company says.