Mobile network data traffic also includes traffic generated by fixed wireless access (FWA) services
Global data traffic over mobile networks has more than doubled every two years over the past ten years, as indicated by the Ericsson Mobility Report from November 2023.
Excluding traffic generated by fixed wireless access (FWA), this figure stood at 130 exabytes (EB) per month (130 billion billion bytes) at the end of 2023. Global mobile data traffic is set to increase three-fold by 2029, reaching 403 EB per month. If traffic generated by FWA is included, total monthly data traffic reached 160 EB per month by the end of 2023 and could climb to 563 EB per month by 2029. In the fourth quarter of 2023, this volume was 151 EB, an increase of 28% over the previous quarter.
The report mentions that globally FWA is increasing in terms of the number of service providers, connections and traffic volumes. Around 80% of mobile operators also offer FWA products while half of them offer 5G-based FWA services. At the end of 2023, 19% of global mobile data traffic was transported over the total of 130 million FWA connections. By 2029, the volume of data carried via FWA is expected to triple with the number of connections reaching 330 million.
The reasons for the strong growth in mobile data traffic are the increasing number of smartphone mobile subscriptions and the increase in the amount of data included in the plans. This increase is mainly due to the growing consumption of video content. According to Ericsson, videos already accounted for 73% of total mobile traffic in 2023.
Average data traffic per smartphone continues to rise and is expected to grow from 21 GB to 56 GB per month between 2023 and 2029, representing compound annual growth of 18%.
While the bulk of mobile data traffic is still absorbed by the networks of the previous generations (3G and 4G), the share of 5G mobile data traffic is continually rising. It accounted for 25% at the end of 2023 (compared with 15% at the end of 2021) and is expected to make up as much as 76% of global mobile data traffic by 2029.
5G will become the dominant mobile technology by 2028.
Last modification 22.05.2024