DL - 4G Americas

devices to turn them into full-fledge medical instruments, according to Chetan Sharma. 84 Sharma noted
that, “the impact on saving lives and quality of health care will be tremendous - worldwide.” 85
According to CTIA, the current U.S. market for wireless home-based health care applications has been
estimated to be $304 million. 86
ABI Research estimates that healthcare, retail and manufacturing, three sectors each with a double-digit
share, will command over 36 percent of all mobile business customer data revenues worldwide over the
next five years. By 2014, data revenues derived from messaging, mobile broadband access, and
applications will reach nearly $27 billion. 87
As previously covered in this section, data traffic is expected to grow significantly. The introduction of
laptops and high-end mobile handsets onto mobile networks is a key driver of traffic, since they offer
content and applications not supported by the previous generations of mobile devices. Among these, the
leading generator of traffic is video, but other applications such as peer-to-peer (P2P) are already
creating waves. 88 As noted by Cisco, a single laptop can generate as much traffic as 1300 basic-feature
phones, and a smartphone creates as much traffic as 10 basic-feature phones. iPhones, in particular, can
generate as much traffic as 30 basic feature phones. 89
In its Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, Cisco estimates that nearly
66 percent of the world’s mobile data traffic will be from video by 2014, will grow at a CAGR of 131
percent between 2009 and 2014 and was noted as having the highest growth rate of any application
category measure within the Cisco VNI Forecast at the time. 90 In the same time period, CAGR growth
rates for mobile gaming is expected to reach 106 percent, P2P will reach 78 percent; with VoIP at 103
percent and web, data and other applications at 83 percent. 91
The industry is faced with development of solutions to address the good news of explosive mobile traffic.
One solution is the reconfiguration of networks to include small cells.
4.5 SMALL CELL GROWTH
The fast-growing wireless data usage discussed in this section is placing high throughput/capacity
demands on current 3G macro networks and is expected to place similar high capacity demands on LTE
as LTE is deployed. Further, the demand for higher user speeds leads to coverage challenges, especially
for indoor users. While enhancements to HSPA (through HSPA+) and LTE (through LTE-Advanced) will
help address these high throughput/capacity demands, many operators are beginning to deploy small cell
solutions as an additional means of addressing the fast-growing wireless data usage demands.
Small cell solutions include 2G/3G/4G femto/pico/micro cells for indoor home/enterprise coverage,
extending outdoor coverage to fill coverage holes and offloading traffic from macro cells. In addition, Wi-Fi
solutions are being used for indoor and outdoor coverage and macro traffic offload. Clearly, future
84
Mobile Industry 1H 2010 Assessment, Chetan Sharma, 8 July 2010.
85
Ibid.
86
50 Wireless Quick Facts, CTIA, October 2010.
87
Enterprise Mobile Data Service Revenues from Healthcare, Retail and Manufacturing Sectors to Reach $27 Billion by 2014, ABI
Research, Analyst Insider, 18 August 2010
88
Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, Cisco, 9 February 2010.
89 Ibid.
90 Ibid.
91 Ibid.
www.4gamericas.org February 2011 Page 39