For many Asia Pacific Internet users, the mobile Internet is their only, or primary, means of accessing the Internet.
Last week, the Internet Society released its annual Global Internet Report, which – among other things- recognized mobile’s impact on the growth and development of the Internet over the past decade.
Some of the reports key findings are particularly interesting for us in the Asia Pacific.
“The way that people in the Asia Pacific region are interacting with the Internet is changing quite a bit. We are spending a lot of time on our mobiles as our main or only way of getting on line,” says Michael Kende, Chief Economist of the Internet Society (ISOC) who authored the report.
“Over the past decade, the mobile Internet has increased affordability and access to the Internet for millions of people throughout the Asia Pacific.
“Within the region, mobile Internet device penetration is currently growing at 23 per cent, faster than any other region in the world. And, in many Asia Pacific countries, mobile Internet access has leap-frogged fixed Internet access penetration.”
Mobile Internet device penetration in the developed Asia-Pacific region already exceeds 100 per cent, indicating that many have multiple subscriptions.
This increase in penetration, coupled with users love affair for generating and sharing multimedia content, is predicted to increase Internet traffic in the region by 72 per cent over the next four years, and by 2019, Asia Pacific region will have greatest mobile Internet traffic out of all regions.
Mr Kende says that ISOC chose to focus on analyzing mobile Internet when writing their annual report because this growth and the related challenges for users and service providers associated with connecting to the Internet through a mobile device.
APNIC’s members comprise of mobile operators who have worked hard to make this evolution happen.
“The challenge for these operators to handle the increase in traffic generated by mobile Internet users will be to upgrade networks to 3G and 4G technologies, he says.”
“Fortunately, demand and the associated revenue will drive this upgrade.”
Listen to our interview with Michael Kende, Chief Economist of the Internet Society.
APNIC @ Mobile World Conference 2015
On Friday, Paul Wilson will be delivering a keynote talk at Asia’s biggest mobile event – the GSMA Mobile World Conference 2015 Shanghai.
MWC was once a big event for the telephone companies, but these days it’s a big event for the Internet.
Paul will be highlighting the exhaustion of IPv4 and the need for Internet providers, and telcos to deploy IPv6 to accommodate the increasing number of mobile Internet devices that will connect in the future.
“The point is very simple: 50 billion devices to connect in 2020 and 150 million IPv4 addresses left,” says Paul.
“IPv6 is the answer.”
Paul Wilson’s presentation at Mobile World Congress 2015
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