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Mobile network news

As many as 21 per cent of those aged between 25 and 34 are currently adopting mobile devices to surf the web, the EIAA's figures have revealed.

The body's executive director Alison Fennah believes that last year saw major developments in people's use of the internet.

"Better devices and connectivity as well as enhanced consumer motivation all started coming together in 2009 to improve and extend the overall online experience," she commented.

In total, 15 European markets were covered by the Mediascope Europe research published by the EIAA.

Smartphones have had a big influence on people's mobile data consumption, Doug Webster, Cisco's senior director for service provider marketing, recently highlighted.

"While the arrival of genuine mobile broadband capability is a cause for celebration, some carriers have been caught short by the sheer scale of uptake," he commented.

However, Mr Hibberd also used his telecoms.com piece to point out that many consumers are unwilling to put up with mobile network problems and may switch to a different operator if they believe they can get a better service elsewhere.

O2 is one network operator that is taking steps to try and match customer demand for mobile data services.

Its chief technology officer Derek McManus recently highlighted the network investment that the firm is making.

He commented: "Rapid consumer adoption of smartphones, netbooks, e-readers and web-ready video cameras as well as machine-to-machine applications like eHealth monitoring ... is continuing to place unprecedented demands on mobile networks."

Mr Webster went on to say that systems that are used for asset tracking purposes may also be having an effect on mobile networks.

Meanwhile, figures published by Cisco have recently predicted that, in four years' time, monthly mobile data traffic might stand at a level of 3.6 exabytes.

The growing demand for mobile broadband services was also recently highlighted in a telecoms.com article by Mike Hibberd.

The expert commented: "I heard of one misbehaving app that was designed to open a new PDP context (data session) for each new page called up."

As a result, Mr Chambers believes that applications can heighten the problems that mobile network operators are already having to face due to large-scale data usage.

Meanwhile, in his ThinkFemtocell.com article, the writer has also highlighted the role that femtocells can play in dealing with smartphone demand.

The smartphone market has recently seen a large amount of growth, with Gartner recently confirming that 53.8 million such devices were bought by end users in the final three-month period of last year.