Study shows spending on mobile broadband up 40% year on year

Nokia Siemens Networks’ Mobile Broadband Study 2010 reported a 40% increase in average monthly spend on mobile broadband compared to 2009. This can be attributed to increased use of mobile broadband among existing customers and higher penetration of the service in market segments with more disposable income. Added to this, is the wide availability of bundled or subsidized offers for laptops and netbooks with the purchase of a mobile broadband connection.

“The study highlights that demand for mobile broadband is rapidly increasing due to its potential to deliver the connected experience people want, wherever they are,” said Beppe Donagemma, head of West & South Europe, Nokia Siemens Networks. “However, the quality of experience needs to improve to increase adoption. Operators need to prepare their networks to handle future volume and data traffic types to sustain mobile broadband growth.”

The majority of mobile broadband users in France, Germany, Spain and the UK want a better mobile broadband experience – faster data speeds, improved quality and better coverage. For a better experience, more than half of the respondents (58%) are interested in high-speed mobile broadband and 30% are even willing to pay a premium for it. The majority of users also said they would be interested in LTE as a preferred next step for improved broadband.

Almost a third of users said they intend to spend more time accessing the Internet via mobile broadband (31%), while a quarter of non-mobile broadband users expressed interest in taking it up.

The study also found that about 80% of the users accessed the Internet with a mobile broadband connection from home. According to the study, about half of the mobile broadband subscribers use mobile broadband on the go, and one in five fixed broadband users is looking to move to mobile broadband. This highlights that mobility remains an important aspect in Internet consumption.

The importance of mobility is further underscored by the finding that subscribers are more likely to use smaller devices, such as mini laptops/netbooks (34%), smartphones and smart devices (25%) to access mobile broadband, compared to PCs (27%) and standard laptops.

About Nokia Siemens Networks

Nokia Siemens Networks is a leading global enabler of telecommunications services. With its focus on innovation and sustainability, the company provides a complete portfolio of mobile, fixed and converged network technology, as well as professional services including consultancy and systems integration, deployment, maintenance and managed services. It is one of the largest telecommunications hardware, software and professional services companies in the world. Operating in 150 countries, its headquarters are in Espoo, Finland. www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com

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Notes to editors:
* Every year, Nokia Siemens Networks conducts a Mobile Broadband Study surveying HSPA users in France, Germany, Spain and the UK. The main objectives of this year‘s study are:

• To understand the drivers for mobile broadband today (HSPA/HSPA+) and in the future (LTE) in key markets in Europe
• Compare how those drivers and trends have developed in the last one year (based on the Mobile Broadband Study 2009)
• Explore consumers’ expectations from mobile broadband today (HSPA/HSPA+) and in the future (LTE)

Current mobile broadband users (HSPA/HSPA+) aged 16-65 years, who access the Internet via mobile network using PC/laptops/netbooks, were surveyed for this study.

Methodology: Nationwide web-based interviews in Germany, France, Spain, and the UK covering 510, 306, 209, and 510 users respectively.

Mobile broadband is based on High Speed Packet Access or HSPA and HSPA+. This is the current version of 3G, providing peak data rates of up to 42 megabit per second (Mbps) in the downlink and 5.8 Mbps in the uplink.

High-speed mobile broadband: HSPA networks are currently evolving to HSPA+, the next phase of the standard with widely available data rates of 21/28 Mbps in the downlink today and evolving to 42 Mbps – and even up to 168 Mbps in the longer term. HSPA+ also reduces latency and provides up to five times more system capacity in the downlink and up to twice as much system capacity in the uplink, reducing the cost per bit compared to the first WCDMA release.

High-speed mobile broadband also covers Long Term Evolution (LTE), the next-generation mobile broadband technology and the evolutionary step from GSM/EDGE, WCDMA/HSPA/HSPA+, TD-SCDMA, CDMA and WiMAX networks. LTE efficiently delivers best user experience of broadband and smart device services due to increased data rates, reduced latency and scalable flat all-IP network architecture. Nokia Siemens Networks is at the forefront of LTE development, being the first to make a LTE call using commercial hardware and standards-compliant software in 2009. Since then, Nokia Siemens Networks has been running LTE trials with over 25 operators across the globe and has already been selected by 17 operators for commercial LTE deployment, including the LTE pioneers TeliaSonera and Deutsche Telekom.