The head of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Hamadoun Toure, has warned that the recent proliferation of smartphones is causing congestion on the world’s mobile networks. A good example is the iPhone which consumes about five times more data when compared to the more traditional mobile phones/handsets thus straining mobile broadband capacity and potentially creating problems of network unavailability in so many places including developing countries which, according to the United Nations, claimed around 73% of the world’s mobile phone subscriptions.
Although 90% of the world is reported to have mobile coverage, the ITU states that only 98 countries have adequate or specific mobile broadband plans. With the total number of smartphones in use expected to rise, around the world, from 500million to 2 billion in 2015 and predictions that there will be around 1 billion worldwide mobile broadband subscriptions in the first quarter of this year, it is no surprise that the situation is providing cause for concern.
While the situation has not yet reached its peak, there are already reports from several users in developed and developing countries of network errors due to data usage and capacity issues. One can only hope that the respective networks will increase their mobile handling capacity or perhaps implement technology that can eventually handle the predicted traffic.
Talking Point
Do you agree with the notion that there are too many smartphones in the world today?
13 Comments
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Wholesale Mobiles
February 22, 2011 at 10:49 am
Yes i agree, Smart phones are taking a huge space in this way. The whole content was very informative specially that iphone consumes five times more data comparatively a traditional mobile set. This post is a completely different analysis of smartphones industry.
gavin
February 22, 2011 at 1:10 pm
Now a days mostly electronic companies are interesting to mobile manufacturing.The high tech mobile like Apple’s iPhone also consumes five times more data than usual handsets.
Andy
February 23, 2011 at 3:05 am
I don’t think we have too many smartphones. We have created our lives these days in such a way that a lot of us NEED smartphones or, if “need”is too strong a word, well a lot of us would feel much incapacitated without them. So no, we don’t have too many smartphones — but our carriers do need to drastically increase their broadband capacities.
Web Hosting
February 23, 2011 at 6:49 am
Network congestion should not surprise us as it is an expected phenomena.
sitakanta
February 24, 2011 at 1:50 pm
Can you please share the report?
I think some of the always on applications may be the problem. For example some of the GPS applications and location based deal alert applications keep sending data to the server even when I am not using them.
Innovation in network speed will finally solve this issue.
Rahul
August 14, 2011 at 5:00 pm
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Jason
February 24, 2011 at 11:06 pm
I agree with Hamadoun, there are definitely too many smartphones in the world if they are causing congestion on the world’s mobile networks.
I’m with you, I hope the networks will improve their mobile handling capacity before the situation becomes worse, and with how popular these smartphones are that might be sooner than later. Thanks for sharing.
Computer Smart Phone Technology
February 28, 2011 at 8:35 pm
Yes, there is lots of smartphone in the market today, but normal mobile phones are still more than the smartphone, which show that smartphone still have long way to go.
silpada
March 4, 2011 at 5:40 pm
This is happening in the mobile networks and I think this problem is happening all over the world.
Michael
March 8, 2011 at 5:09 pm
I do believe that there has been a sudden surge of investments into the smart phone market. Most notibly the Iphone of course.
However i do not know how it is possible to halt this issue.
Admin
March 13, 2011 at 11:56 pm
Perhaps, the only way of halting the progression of smartphones is by inventing an alternative device.
Sanjay
November 19, 2012 at 7:43 am
Yes this is correct but if there are more features and options are available in smartphones then the data will be automatically consumed by these smartphone application and features, So smartphone companies and mobile service providers should work together to overcome this problem.
Priya
November 18, 2014 at 9:55 am
Yes. I agree for this smartphone.. You could buy online android mobiles phones