U.N. reports mobile broadband subscriptions outnumber wired connections
October 7, 2009
More people around the world use cell phones, netbooks, and other mobile devices to connect to broadband internet than use fixed-line connections, according to a U.N. report released Tuesday.
The report, compiled from statistics tabulated by the International Telecommunication Union, estimates that 600 million wirelessbroadband subscriptions will exist by the end of this year, compared to an estimated 500 million fixed-line subscriptions. Susan Teltscher of the ITU told Forbes that the organization expects the upward trend in wireless broadband to continue.
The report cited a number of reasons for the rapid growth in wireless broadband subscriptions. Insufficient wired infrastructure in many parts of the world forced people in underdeveloped nations to adopt voice-only cellular subscriptions in order to get phone service, and wireless internet is a natural outgrowth of this tendency. More than 70 percent of the world's population now has mobile phone service of some sort, according to the report.
News of wireless broadband's expansion comes as unwelcome news to traditional phone and internet providers, whose number of landline phone subscriptions will drop to about one billion by year's end, the report estimates.
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