Will mobile data usage increase ten times by 2016?

I caught an article on the new report issued by Ericsson that is predicting mobile data will increase “10-fold” by 2016.  The just-released Ericsson Traffic and Market Data Report made this forecast.

Ericsson has been collecting data from all over the world for many years now.  They have had access to all of the data to be able to make such intelligent scientific guesses.

The Head of Business Unit Networks for Ericsson, Johan Wibergh said “The report offers snapshots that show how a growing number of people and businesses benefit from mobility, broadband and the cloud.”  And benefit they are!

Ericsson determined that video is currently the biggest portion of internet usage followed by browsing.  The accompanying graph prepared by Ericsson shows a breakdown of the usage.

The smartphone data usage is expected to triple for 2011 by the year’s end.  Also, traffic from high-end wireless devices is expected to increase 12-fold, so everyone’s appetite for data, probably high consumption data like video, is going to be insatiable.

Johan also said they are keeping track of all this data “Ericsson performs a broad range of measurements in order to monitor the pulse of the Networked Society – measurements that we use to efficiently design our products and plan networks.”  We can see that they definitely know how to use this research just by looking at the success of all the smartphones and devices they helped develop during their ownership of Sony Ericsson.

If I were a betting person, I would bet that Ericsson’s prediction of a 10-fold increase by 2016 will be met if not exceeded.

We should also see an explosive growth in true 4G wireless networking in both speed and bandwidth availability.  We just have to hope that unreasonable data caps do not kill the technology adoption rate.