{"id":77696,"date":"2013-05-20T10:02:44","date_gmt":"2013-05-20T08:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=77696"},"modified":"2013-05-20T10:05:35","modified_gmt":"2013-05-20T08:05:35","slug":"mobile-voice-versus-data-the-simple-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/77696-mobile-voice-versus-data-the-simple-truth.html","title":{"rendered":"Mobile voice versus data: the simple truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Akamai<\/a> released its Q4 2012 State of the Internet Report in April 2013, showing that mobile data growth is exponential, while voice traffic is flat.<\/p>\n

According to the report, which uses insight from mobile vendor Ericsson<\/a>, the volume of mobile data traffic doubled from the fourth quarter of 2011 to the fourth quarter of 2012.<\/p>\n

Mobile data traffic grew by 28% between the third and fourth quarter of 2012, continuing the exponential growth seen over the last few years.<\/p>\n

Mobile voice traffic continues to grow as well, though at a much slower rate, increasing 3% from the fourth quarter of 2011 to the fourth quarter of 2012.<\/p>\n

The following graph shows mobile voice and data volumes as measured by Ericsson, which has a presence in more than 180 countries and a customer base representing more than 1,000 networks.<\/p>\n

\"Total<\/a>

Total Monthly Mobile Voice and Data as Measured by Ericsson<\/p><\/div>\n

Capacity battle for mobile operators<\/h3>\n

This massive growth in mobile data means that mobile operators have to continually upgrade their network to cope.<\/p>\n

These upgrades include better radio networks (like LTE<\/a> and HSPA+<\/a>), higher transmission capacity and better national and international networks.<\/p>\n

Mobile networks face one hurdle which is not easy to overcome \u2013 the need for more spectrum to grow its radio network capacity.<\/p>\n

The Department of Communications (DoC<\/a>) is dragging its feet on how it wants spectrum to be handed out, and the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA<\/a>) may also be a hurdle for the incumbent operators.<\/p>\n

ICASA councillor Marcia Socikwa<\/a> recently said that the mobile operators have sufficient spectrum, and that they need to optimise their networks and improve quality of service.<\/p>\n

These comments surprised industry players, who have been urging the regulator to hand out valuable spectrum which is currently unused.<\/p>\n

More mobile data articles<\/h3>\n

SA mobile data to hit 102,565TB per month in 2016<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

900 petabytes mobile data traffic per month<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Great news for broadband in SA<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom, MTN, Cell C and 8ta speeds compared<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Akamai\u2019s Q4 2012 State of the Internet Report shows exactly why mobile operators have a challenge on their hands, especially in SA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":77698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[3340,2534,35],"class_list":["post-77696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-akamai","tag-ericsson","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77696"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77696"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77984,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77696\/revisions\/77984"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}