Data You Need: Latest Study Shows Wireless Data Spike

May 6, 2014

The numbers are out and data is way, way out in front. Not that such a statement is news. We have known data has been swamping the airwaves for a while now, but most research has shown it to be somewhere in the 70 percent to 80 percent area as far as total system traffic goes.

However, a just-released study from Amdocs called State of the Radio Access Network Survey indicates that the data absolutely dominates mobile networks, accounting for a whopping 98% of traffic — far exceeding the numbers from any other survey so far and up from 90 percent last year. While those numbers may be hard to swallow, it does makes some sense and they have the research to support it.

But those numbers bring with them some bad news. The leading frustration that consumers are facing, according to the survey, is a 50-percent drop in indoor data rate throughput. As well, the survey found that dropped calls are as high as 17 percent in the highest usage areas. The survey drew the conclusion that this data tsunami is placing an inordinate amount of stress on the networks and is leading to compromised quality of experience.

The survey is based on more than 4 million voice and data connections from more than 100,000 mobile devices in the busiest network locations globally in the past 12 months.

Last year’s survey showed that data traffic accounted for 90 percent of overall network traffic. This year’s survey pushed that figure even higher and “demonstrates subscribers’ overwhelming use of smartphones and tablets to consume and share content,” according to Amdocs. Voice calls also grew 16 percent, pale in comparison to the data and even though it grew, data grew so much faster that voice ended up being even less of an overall percentage than last year.

Still More Data

And if that isn’t a bit of a sobering note, wait until photo and video sharing gain traction with consumers. It is already showing signs of growing pains.

There are nearly 200 million users of apps like Facebook’s Instagram and Twitters’ Vine, which are popular video social networking applications heavily targeted toward teenagers. They create an attractive mobile-based platform for many brands geared to this target market. But what has the effect been on mobile networks? While it is too early to know the exact impact these platforms will have on the networks, if they continue on their projected growth curve, these platforms are sure to add even more crunch to the already overloaded airwaves. This will be interesting.