The number of mobile broadband subscribers surpassed that of fixed broadband subscribers last year, with the gap set to widen over the next three years.
Despite there being five billion mobile devices globally, it is the 1.5 billion smartphones, netbooks, tablets and other devices running mobile-
optimised OSs in 2014 that will cause the most bandwidth problems. As mobile broadband becomes increasingly popular, growth in fixed broadband is predicted to slow.
The biggest hindrances to LTE roll-out are thought to be the lack of fibre needed for backhaul capacity and consumer distrust of the packet timing and synchronisation capabilities of IP/Ethernet. But operators and vendors have increasingly replaced copper with fibre over recently and single IP/Ethernet backhaul networks are being deployed.
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