The number of wireless broadband customers around the world will increase from 70 million in 2008 to 2.1 billion in 2015, and provision of wireless broadband services will be dominated by HSPA and HSPA+, despite the existence of WiMAX. HSPA will support 61 million wireless broadband customers (88% of all users) by the end of 2008, and HSPA and HSPA+ together will serve 1.1 billion subscribers by the end of 2015, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Wireless broadband customers worldwide, by technology, 2008–2015
Despite the high expectations of some in the wireless industry, the take-up of non-voice services has up to now been limited by several factors: cellular broadband services have been expensive and difficult to use, and the benefits to customers have not been clear. Various recent developments will underpin significant growth in the number of cellular broadband users:
- affordable pricing
- widespread deployment of HSPA networks, bringing broadband speeds (over 1Mbit/s) to cellular networks
- availability of easy-to-use handsets carrying compelling applications, and plug-and-play dongles
- end users’ familiarity with fixed broadband services
- the increasing number of cellular users worldwide, representing a very large potential user base for broadband services
- new opportunities in developing regions, which lack fixed broadband infrastructure.
HSPA combines enhancements to both the UMTS downlink (HSDPA) and the uplink (HSUPA) to give significantly better data performance than basic W-CDMA. The first commercial HSDPA services were launched in October 2005, and the technology has already been widely deployed by mobile network operators (by May 2008, there had been about 200 commercial launches of HSDPA). HSUPA is still relatively new. The earliest commercial services using HSUPA were launched in the first half of 2007. By May 2008, there had been 36 commercial launches of HSUPA. HSPA+, using higher-order modulation and smart antennas to boost the performance of HSPA, will become commercially available towards the end of 2008.
Most HSPA users (87%) at the end of 2008 will be in developed regions (predominantly Western Europe and developed Asia, such as Japan), because that is where W-CDMA was first deployed. There are, however, huge opportunities in developing regions, which lack fixed broadband infrastructure: these countries will account for 705 million HSPA and HSPA+ customers by the end of 2015, representing 63% of HSPA/HSPA+ customers worldwide.
Wireless broadband forecasts for 2008–2015: HSPA, HSPA+, EV-DO, LTE and WiMAX
This report provides detailed global forecasts for wireless broadband subscriber numbers, revenue and ARPU for the period 2008–2015. Forecasts are broken down by wireless broadband technology (HSPA, HSPA+, EV-DO, LTE and WiMAX) and by region (Western Europe, developed Asia, North America, Eastern Europe, rest of the Americas, rest of Asia and rest of world)
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