Reduced prices drives demand for mobile broadband

Businesses and consumers in western Europe will increasingly turn to mobile broadband technology as they strive to take advantage of flexible, low-priced connections, according to a new study.

Research by Telecompaper suggests that the amount of mobile broadband units - encompassing PC cards, ExpressCards, USB and internal cellular modems - shipped across the region in 2012 will surge to 17 million. This represents a compound annual growth rate of 32 per cent on last year's figure, which stood at 4.3 million units.

The analyst firm forecasts that the fastest growing markets over the next five years will be Scandinavia, Greece, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

Progress in the UK, Germany, Italy and Austria will be slower because they already have a large volume of mobile broadband connections. These nations accounted for 70 per cent of 5.8 million subscribers in western Europe during 2007.

Recent research from Broadband Expert suggested that the average mobile broadband speed received by UK consumers is 1.46Mbps, with Vodafone recording the quickest industry speed of 2.3Mbps.