Digital Lifescapes

The U.S. and Canada added 58 million HSPA and LTE mobile broadband connections annually at the first quarter, which translates to mobile broadband now comprising 49 percent of all mobile connections in the region, according to the latest market study by Informa Telecoms & Media. Worldwide, 4G LTE achieved an annual growth rate higher than 400 percent at the end of March 2013, ending the quarter with more than 90 million connections -- and that number grew by May 2013 to more than 100 million connections. Today, there are 178 commercial LTE networks in 72 countries compared to about 74 commercial networks in 40 countries one year ago -- that's more than 100 newly launched LTE networks in 12 months. "The Americas is at an exciting technology transition point right now," said Kristin Paulin, senior research analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media . LTE has been extremely successful in the U.S. and Canada where subscriptions surpassed 49 million and the North Amer

Infonetics Research released excerpts from its latest carrier Wi-Fi and hotspot survey, which explores the drivers, strategies, models and technology choices that are shaping mobile network service provider Wi-Fi deployments. "Best-effort WiFi is no longer good enough; mobile operators need carrier-class sophistication," said Richard Webb, directing analyst for microwave and carrier WiFi at Infonetics Research . Next-gen carrier WiFi has evolved to enable operators to deliver the same quality of experience as mobile networks through closer integration with the mobile RAN. Hotspot 2.0 will go a long way to building the bridge between the technologies from a technical standpoint, but operators are still figuring out how to position WiFi within their broadband offerings and which service models will generate the most revenue. According to the Infonetics assessment, mobile network offload of data traffic is not enough; WiFi has got to pay for itself -- by becoming a new s

The Internet of Everything (IoE) includes many new applications for wireless IP connectivity. Vehicle telematics is high up on the list of most promising use cases. Like any other emerging technology, a market catalyst can help to increase the early-adopter deployments. ABI Research forecasts that the total revenue, comprising hardware shipments, and service subscriptions, for commercial fleet telematics in the government sector will increase from $618 million at the end of 2012 to $1.26 billion globally by the end of 2018. In the current economic climate, government and public sector agencies are under relentless pressure to reduce costs while at the same time maintain service levels, and are looking at ways of improving the utilization of their vehicle fleets and ensuring that these fleets comply with new regulatory and environmental legislation. "The main market drivers behind the adoption of telematics in government fleets are government mandates designed, for example, t

With the advent of network technologies such as 3G and 4G, mobile data traffic has been growing at an unprecedented pace and is increasingly outstripping the available mobile network capacity. The introduction of smartphones, tablets, and other devices has been driving mobile data growth. According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, almost 50 percent of data traffic generated by these mobile phones, tablets and other 3G/4G connected devices, will be offloaded to Wi-Fi and Small Cell networks this year. This is equivalent to 10 billion movie downloads or 9,000 petabytes (PB) per year being offloaded from mobile operator’s networks. The Juniper market study found that while mobile network operators were benefiting from much needed relief on their over-subscribed networks, they were potentially losing monetization opportunities on the lost data usage. In response, mobile service providers are actively partnering with existing Wi-Fi networks and launching their own car

Global shipments of smart connected devices (PCs, tablets, and smartphones) are expected to surpass 1.7 billion units by 2014, with roughly 1 billion units delivered to emerging markets -- according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Within the emerging markets, the BRIC countries -- China, India, Brazil, and Russia -- are expected to generate shipments of 662 million units with a shipment value of more than $206 billion. More than 650 million units are forecast to be shipped to developed markets, with the United States, UK, and Japan capturing more than 400 million units with a shipment value of $204 billion. With the BRIC countries expected to surpass the total shipments to developed markets by 2014, it is clear that demand for smart connected devices is quickly shifting from developed to emerging markets. The emerging markets are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17 percent over the 2012-2017 forecast period, compare

The smartphone in your pocket is capable of many things -- including making payments to purchase tickets for use on public transportation, and a host of other useful applications for this emerging m-commerce technology. As consumer adoption of smartphones increases, usage of mobile devices to purchase goods and services has soared. The mobile phone user base, once cautious of using the technology, increasingly expects to be able to easily complete these transactions. Just over 950 million mobile phone users worldwide are expected to use their handsets for mobile ticketing by 2018 -- that's up from 458 million this year, according to the latest market study by Juniper Research. Growth is expected to be driven primarily within key transport verticals, although significant uptake is anticipated across other key sectors -- such as live entertainment events and cinema ticketing. Air, Metro Ticketing will Fuel New Growth Juniper analysts noted that the airline industry was a

More employees are using their own smartphones and media tablets at work, and they expect to connect them to the enterprise wireless network. Some IT managers still wonder if this is merely a fad -- it isn't. According to the latest market study by Ovum, Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) is here to stay. Moreover, they have revealed the findings of a 2013 multi-market BYOX (bring-your-own-anything) study to help the doubters understand that the time for decisive action is now. With corporate BYOD activity by full-time employees (FTEs) remaining steady at almost 60 percent over the past two years, Ovum tells business leaders to respond and adapt to this change in employee behavior -- rather than resist the growing demand. Launching the research at its "BYOX World Forum" in London, Ovum revealed that the BYOX phenomenon shows no signs of disappearing, as nearly 70 percent of employees who own a smartphone or tablet choose to use it to access corporate data. The personal

As the Internet of Things (IoT) evolves into the Internet of Everything (IoE) there will be a trickle-down effect that impacts a variety of related industries and market sectors. According to the latest market study by ABI Research, global insurance telematics subscriptions are expected to grow at a CAGR of 81 percent from 5.5 million at the end of 2013 to 107 million in 2018. "With Progressive’s Snapshot having attracted more than 1 million drivers in the U.S. and Octo Telematics already counting close to 1.3 million UBI customers -- mainly in Italy -- insurance telematics is now entering the mainstream market, at least in certain countries," said Dominique Bonte, VP and practice director at ABI Research . The emergence of smartphone-based solutions, the gender ruling in the EU, and growing awareness of insurers to move to a more proactive safety, preventive, and service/CRM based approach improving the customer experience and loyalty will be strong drivers for growth

Can an alternative smartphone OS option challenge the dominant position of Google Android and Apple iOS ecosystems? ​A group of new open-source mobile operating systems (OS) are set to make an impact on the mobile industry, according to the latest market study by ABI Research. Jolla recently released its first smartphone running on its Sailfish OS. Additionally, Firefox will be launching in Latin America and other emerging regions later this year on ZTE devices, and Tizen will be available on new Samsung smartphones in the next quarter. Also, Ubuntu-based mobile devices are projected to be released in 2H 2013. Amongst the clutter, ABI projects Tizen to become the most notable player out of the emerging OS marketplace. "Tizen’s strong backing from Intel and Samsung will enable it to quickly outpace its other Linux mobile OS challengers,” says Joshua Flood, senior analyst at ABI Research . Additionally, other segments of the mobile ecosystem are keen for a new mobile OS to u

comScore released data reporting key trends in the U.S. smartphone industry during the three month average period ending April 2013. According to their latest market study, Apple ranked as the top smartphone manufacturer -- with 39 percent OEM market share. Meanwhile, Google Android once again led as the number one smartphone platform -- with 52 percent platform market share. Smartphone OEM Market Share 138.5 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones (58 percent mobile market penetration) during the three months ending in April -- that's up by 7 percent since January. Apple ranked as the top OEM with 39.2 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers  -- that's up by 1.4 percentage points from January. Samsung ranked second with 22 percent market share (up 0.6 percentage points), followed by HTC with 8.9 percent, Motorola with 8.3 percent and LG with 6.7 percent. Smartphone Platform Market Share Google Android ranked as the top smartphone platform with 52 percen

According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), smartphone shipments are expected to grow by 32.7 percent year over year in 2013, reaching 958.8 million units -- that's up from 722.5 million units in 2012. 2013 will mark the first year that smartphone shipments surpass those of feature phones, with smartphones expected to account for 52.2 percent of all mobile phone shipments worldwide. IDC believes that this trend will continue as demand for mobile internet access spreads across both developed and emerging markets. In fact, emerging markets will account for 64.8 percent of all smartphones shipped during 2013 -- that's up from 43.1 percent in 2010. Strong demand from end users, greater emphasis by mobile service providers, and a deep selection of devices available from vendors at multiple price points are all contributing to smartphone adoption. In addition, user behavior has switched from simple voice telephony to digital content creation

The shift of video consumption to tablets and smartphones is causing pay-TV service provider requirements for video on demand (VOD) systems to change as vendors struggle to keep up with current generation needs, according to the latest market study by ABI Research. A case in point, I previously shared my own use case that demonstrated how I discovered that the HBO GO internet video streaming service had significantly more content in their archive than the HBO VOD offering from Time Warner Cable. ABI belives that equipment and system vendors, such as Arris (now including Motorola Home), SeaChange, Cisco, and Ericsson are expected to lose ground to cloud-oriented companies -- such as thePlatform, Synacor, and KIT Digital (expected to emerge from bankruptcy as Piksel). VOD vendors will see less than 30 percent growth over the next five years, while content management system (CMS) vendors will capture the market and see nearly 100 percent growth to seize half of the total VOD manage

Mobile payments, performed via a device such as a smartphone, is clearly a fast growing sector of the global communications and retail-related marketplace. In the next two years many more consumers worldwide will be engaging in making mobile payments, according to the latest comprehensive market study by Portio Research . At the end of 2012, there were 480 million mobile payment users worldwide -- this number is expected to cross the 1 billion users mark by the end of 2015. Moreover, the figure is expected to continue increasing -- eventually reaching nearly 1.5 billion users by the end of 2017. Mobile payment volumes -- that's the total value of goods and services and utility bill payments made through mobile devices annually -- reached $81.3 billion worldwide in 2011. The growth rate enjoyed an increase of 148 percent over the course of 2012 -- to reach an estimated $202 billion. Worldwide, the market is set to grow to reach $410 billion this year, in 2013, and then v

​The adoption of mobile internet access across the globe is a phenomenal success story for the telecommunications sector. Global mobile data traffic expanded by 69 percent in 2012 and is anticipated to grow by 72 percent in 2013 -- to reach 23,000 Peta Bytes. Mobile internet usage will continue to skyrocket. By 2018 total mobile data traffic will likely eclipse 131,000 Peta Bytes, according to the latest market study by ABI Research. "There has been much doom-mongering about this growth in mobile data traffic but mobile carriers should not panic just yet. There are indications that mobile carriers have a number of options to handle the traffic loads," said Jake Saunders, VP and practice director for core forecasting at ABI Research . Based on extensive research for the resulting report on this topic, ABI has detailed the strategic options mobile service providers can place at their disposal to manage the expanding mobile data traffic outlook. Radio Access Technology O

There once was a time when Apple had been able to maintain its media tablet lead by delivering a quality experience at a premium price. But as a growing number of analyst opinions raise new doubts about ongoing leadership -- the consumer electronics (CE) brand may have lost some of its caché in the marketplace. Even though the iPad maker exited the first quarter of 2013 with a 50 percent share of all tablet shipments, the Google Android ecosystem is poised to overtake iOS -- according to the latest market study by ABI Research. The big variable for Android leadership success is progress in China. The Chinese consumer elite still seem to be upbeat about the Apple brand -- and there's a growing ability for more consumers to afford technology devices. However, the selection of smaller 7 inch Android tablets has become very popular, even though most currently lack the Google suite of apps and Android Play marketplace. Moreover, a push for sub-$200 tablets is keeping Android re

Historically, people have disliked digital rights management (DRM) systems that are imposed on them by the entertainment industry. Regardless, the ongoing concern over digital video piracy has motivated big media companies -- such as Warner Bros. -- to pioneer new approaches. The latest effort is known as UltraViolet (UV) -- it's intended to restrict the copying of recorded movies and television shows, and yet still allow some flexibility for the customer who purchased the content. The industry creators say that UltraViolet is a free, cloud-based digital rights collection that gives people greater flexibility with how and where they watch the movies and TV shows that they purchase. Therefore, UV attempts to enable viewing video in a multi-platform environment. According to the latest market study by ABI Research, active UltraViolet accounts -- those with multiple movies and TV shows -- will exceed 65 million worldwide, that's up from the estimated 6 to 8 million at presen

According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), media tablet shipments are expected to grow 58.7 percent year over year in 2013 reaching 229.3 million units -- that's up from 144.5 million units last year. IDC now predicts tablet shipments will exceed those of portable PCs this year, as the slumping PC market is expected to see negative growth for the second consecutive year. As I mentioned yesterday , IDC expects media tablet shipments to outpace the entire PC market (portables and desktops combined) by 2015. "What started as a sign of tough economic times has quickly shifted to a change in the global computing paradigm with mobile being the primary benefactor," said Ryan Reith, Program Manager at IDC . Tablets surpassing portables in 2013, and total PCs in 2015, marks a significant change in consumer attitudes about compute devices and the applications and ecosystems that power them. IDC continues to believe that PCs will have an im

The key technology trend that has created huge challenges for major vendors -- such as HP and Dell -- shows no sign of changing direction. Worldwide personal computer (PC) shipments are now expected to fall by -7.8% in 2013, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). The new forecast reflects a shift in PC buying trends as users increasingly consider alternatives such as delaying a PC purchase or using tablets and smartphones for more of their computing needs. In place of a limited decline of -1.3% in 2013 followed by a gradual increase in volume, the new outlook calls for a more substantial decline of -7.8% in 2013 and -1.2% in 2014 with shipment volume reaching only 333 million in 2017. To put this into perspective with the past experience, that forecast is still below the 349 million shipped in 2012 and a peak of more than 363 million shipped in 2011. The updated forecast reflects the significant drop in volume during the first quarter of 2

Mobile machine-to-machine (M2M) modules -- based upon 2G technologies -- continued to dominate shipments in 2012 with over 70 percent market share, according to the latest market study by ABI Research. As a result, module revenues did not break the $1 billion mark as hoped and the average module price continued to decline. "Cellular M2M module price competition was intense in 2012 driven by several factors," says, Dan Shey, practice director at ABI Research . Europe was not the traditional M2M module bellwether market and continued to decline in share of module shipments, Meanwhile, some Chinese vendors competed aggressively in the higher volume 2G led market segments, and mobile network operators pushed hard for lower module pricing to grow total cellular connections. However, unlike the personal cellular modem and even the smartphone market, M2M module vendors can insulate themselves from pricing competition by targeting the right industry verticals and offering a

According to the latest market study by 4G Americas, the number of LTE connections worldwide passed 100 million in May -- with the U.S. and Canada capturing 57 million subscriptions of that global total. There are 172 operators in 70 countries with LTE mobile networks and more than 250 commercial LTE networks are expected by the end of 2013. "We are pleased to report that 20 Latin American operators have commercially deployed LTE networks and the number of connections in the region is quickly increasing," said Chris Pearson, President of 4G Americas. The following are highlights from the latest worldwide market assessment. For more information and to view a variety of statistical charts on the 3GPP family of technologies, visit www.4gamericas.org Global Market Highlights 172 commercial LTE networks today; 250 commercial LTE networks expected by the end of 2013. Over 450 total commitments to LTE deployment by wireless operators to date. 68 million LTE connec