Gigabyte mobile data arrives

According to the networking giant, Cisco, world mobile users doubled their data consumption in just the last year. Even as the developing world grew explosively, mobile traffic in North America still gained an impressive amount – 77 percent in the last year.

Monthly consumption reached over 1 GB in many of the developed countries, including world leaders: Japan, the U.S. and South Korea. Europe is lagging behind. The top three are closely tied: Japan 1.87 GBs per user month, followed by the U.S. at 1.41 GBs and South Korea with 1.25 GBs.

“Those three countries happen to be the first to launch LTE networks on a large scale, and according to Cisco director of service provider marketing Thomas Barnett, 4G adoption has become the strongest indicator of skyrocketing mobile broadband use worldwide,” said Gigaom.

The growth also parallels both the profusion of smartphones worldwide, as well as an unexpected development: connections of laptops to mobile networks. “Barnett attributes that to the fact that laptops are starting to resemble tablets, coming with touchscreen capabilities and retractable keyboards. As people start to use their laptops like tablets, they’re increasing treating them as mobile — not merely portable — devices.”

Read Cisco’s report here.

Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, 2013–2018 (Cisco System, Feb. 5, 2014)

Cisco: The U.S. officially enters the gigabyte era of mobile data consumption (Gigaom, Feb. 5, 2014)