Mobile Wireless Communications Today
by Puneet
Gupta
Mobile Wireless Market: Technology Forecasts
In the last few years the traffic increases in the mobile
networks and the number of subscribers has been greater than
anticipated. Infact in many places the mobile penetration has
grown to more than 50%. In this section I'll talk about the
existing market for the 2G technologies as well as forecasts
for these technologies and the third generation networks.
What looks clear is that after coexisting with the digital
technologies for a few years (3-5) we'll see a disappearance
of the analogue technologies. According to the latest updates
from [2], the number of digital cellular subscribers is
expected to double from around 624 million in early 2001 to
over 1.14 billion at the beginning of 2003 and may move up to
1.62 billion at the beginning of 2005. At the same time we'll
see the number of analogue cellular subscriptions falling from
80 million at the beginning of 2001 to 37 million by the
beginning of 2003 and 14 million by the beginning of 2005.
The current second generation technologies, thanks to the
continuos improvements and 2.5G overlays should be viable in
the medium term and continue to win market share for at least
next five years. Also, the 3G technologies should not have any
major impact till 2003 and then coexist with 2G technologies
for another 2 to 3 years before gaining prominence. 3G related
work is still going on and Japan could be among the very first
countries with commercial 3G roll out, as early as 2002. The
next graphic shows a distribution of cellular subscribers
across various regions of the world and the forecasts for
future.
According to the coverage and the subscriber numbers world
wide, GSM comes out as a clear winner in digital technologies.
Today 89% of all cellular subscribers are using digital
technology and around 65% of these are GSM subscribers, with
CDMA and D-AMPS having around 13-14 % of digital subscribers
each.
As the number of digital subscribers grows by almost 100 %
by 2003 the subscriber ratio is expected to remain the same.
3G should begin showing it's presence but with a very small
number of subscribers till 2003 and a subscriber base of under
2.5% till 2005.
Global Forecasts By Technology
Source: mobile@ovum
|
|
|
2001 |
2002 |
2003 |
2004 |
2005 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total subscriptions at 1 January
(thousands) |
|
703,870 |
940,226 |
1,180,694 |
1,406,284 |
1,616,125 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total analogue |
|
80,157 |
61,220 |
37,400 |
20,111 |
13,998 |
|
Total digital |
|
623,714 |
879,006 |
1,143,294 |
1,386,174 |
1,602,126 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
GSM |
|
406,605 |
566,176 |
730,449 |
875,608 |
991,706 |
|
CDMA |
|
86,797 |
128,155 |
167,744 |
202,662 |
230,671 |
|
PDC |
|
48,742 |
53,973 |
60,084 |
63,677 |
66,141 |
|
D-AMPS |
|
81,569 |
130,691 |
182,444 |
228,707 |
274,182 |
|
Third-generation |
|
0 |
11 |
2,573 |
15,519 |
39,426 |
Next:
The Standards Debate
|
