HIGHLIGHTS
India's mobile broadband users to grow fourfold by 2020 to reach 500 million subscribers; smartphone penetration to reach 45%
Sharing its vision of what Ericsson calls The Networked Society and how it’s coming to life in India, the company today released some key numbers predicting the growth of mobile broadband in the country. And some of the findings are quite interesting for all you stats obsessed readers.
Mobile broadband usage is on the rise with social media, web browsing and chat driving more than a third of the mobile broadband traffic currently. Ericsson estimates that India’s mobile subscriber base will grow from 795 million in 2013 to 1145 million subscribers by 2020. Simultaneously, smartphone penetration will grow from 10% or 90 million devices in 2013 to 45% or 520 million devices.
Some of the other growth parameters are available below. Click on the images to expand.
 |
 |
 |
 |
Among the topics covered at the press conference, Ajay Gupta, Head of Strategy & Marketing, Ericsson India pointed out some of the challenges in the country. For instance, ubiquitous mobile broadband experience for users is a challenge at present, with only a third being able to access internet over a mobile broadband network every time they attempt to get online.
One of the interesting solutions to improve network performance presented at the conference was what Ericsson calls App Coverage – a term coined by the company itself. The idea is that since every app has its own requirements on the network performance, operators can customise or prioritize the consumer’s experience for certain apps.
Through techniques such as deep packet inspection and policy control the network is able to identify which app is demanding data throughput. Couple this with data plans that are bucketized for certain app performance – say for instance you care more about video streaming than IM apps – the network could in theory customise the experience for you. In other words “App Coverage” aims at delivering sufficient performance to run an application at acceptable quality.
For operators, it is about offering users a higher chance of attaining a targeted performance level, at all locations. To densify network in building network coverage Ericsson mentioned solutions such as Radio Dot System – essentially a localized network booster.
 |
At the conference Ericsson had set up an experience zone where journalists could actually experience some of the company’s cutting edge projects. One such concept demoed was capacitive coupling or as Ericsson calls it Connected Me. It’s basically a way to use the human body to transmit data to and from a mobile device. You hold a product in one hand and information about the product gets instantly transmitted to your smartphone which you are holding in your other hand.