The rapid growth of mobile broadband traffic in recent years has been driven and facilitated by the appearances of, and developments in, new devices and HSPA technology. HSPA has a large footprint across many markets, providing wide-area coverage for a variety of terminals, including popular smartphones.
Several commercial LTE networks have also been deployed recently, aimed at meeting the longer-term needs of mobile broadband consumers. HSPA networks have a larger ecosystem, and consequently the majority of growth in mobile broadband traffic in coming years is likely to occur in these networks. Ericsson estimates that mobile broadband subscriptions will almost top 5 billion by 2016 ? and by that time, it is expected that more than 75 percent of these subscriptions will use HSPA networks.
