Coda Research Consultancy forecasts that data traffic via mobile handsets in the US will reach 327TB per month in 2015. Rising at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of +117%, tiered pricing for mobile internet access will become unavoidable.
At the core of this growth is mobile video. Rising at +138% CAGR to reach 224TB per month in 2015, mobile video will form two thirds of mobile handset data traffic.
"Will the carriers be able to cope? Peak capacity is the main issue rather than capacity in general. This is particularly problematic in high-density cities such as San Francisco, Boston, New York and Phoenix. As carrier networks now stand, network utilization will reach 100% in 2012 during peak times. This is when smartphone penetration will reach 40%", says Steve Smith, co-Founder of Coda Research Consultancy.
"Flat rate pricing has helped drive mobile internet adoption, but we envisage that as smartphone penetration rises and as carriers roll out 4G, carriers will have to move toward tiered pricing. This will not only help carriers to manage network usage, it will help them to increase profits lost to declining voice revenues and help pay for 4G services. However, carriers face the significant challenge of selling tiered pricing to a public accustomed to flat rates across media services, not least because they want their billing to be as simple as possible. Carriers have found predicting data usage difficult. How much more difficult will this be for users? Ask the average mobile subscriber how much usage 100mb will give them and it is almost certain they won't know. Nor do people want to be constantly on watch for the amount of traffic they are creating as they go through the month. Carriers are clearly going to have to do some creative thinking about how to sell tiered pricing to consumers. Alternatives to download limits may be around speed and time of day."
Other key findings from a new Coda Research Consultancy report include the following:
* Mobile video users will rise by +34% CAGR, to reach 95m in 2015
* People accessing social networking via mobile handsets will rise at +21% CAGR between now and 2015
* Non-SMS data revenues will climb at +17% CAGR, and will form 87% of all data revenues in 2015
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