MWC: LTE to drive explosion in web traffic

BARCELONA: Video will account for more than 60 per cent of global internet traffic by 2014 as LTE technology takes off, according to the head of LG's mobile communication technology research lab.

Jin-Sung Choi explained that consumers are already demanding superior connectivity, and have started generating unprecedented volumes of data.

"We are moving to LTE, and there will be a variety of connected devices from simple dongles, smartphones and tablets to TVs," he said during a keynote address at Mobile World Congress.

"LTE services are geared to support video calling, live TV streaming and real-time 3D gaming."

Choi argued that LTE will help to deliver augmented reality applications, which will become "ubiquitous in the near future and will change our quality of life".

Operators will also continue to play a key role in providing consumers with access to services, according to Hossein Moiin, chief technology officer at Nokia Siemens Networks.

The next few years of growth will be driven by consumers and their demand for access to faster broadband, Moiin explained.

"In the recent past we have seen serious strains on our network [owing to] the explosion of dongles and smartphones," he said.

"As demand for [mobile services] increases, our ability to respond to that demand does not change so dramatically."

Operators need to be flexible and reuse existing technology and infrastructure as it is not economically feasible to build new networks, Moiin added.

LTE is expected to be rolled out later this year and early next year across multiple regions, and Moiin insisted that operators will "not make the same mistake we made in the UMTS era".

The keynote comments from LG and Nokia Siemens Networks echo those of Qualcomm's chief executive earlier in the show. Paul Jacobs predicted that over 70 per cent of electronic devices will be connected to the internet by 2014 as wireless connectivity drives a huge surge in uptake