L’Union internationale Telecommunication Union (ITU) on Friday urged States to accelerate the deployment of fiber optics and to make available over radio frequencies if we want to avoid the congestion of mobile networks.
Users of smartphones already consume on average five times more data capacity than ordinary mobile phones.
While the number of smartphones in use worldwide, which is today estimated 500 million, will likely increase to two billion by 2015, operators must already use multi-faceted strategies to meet demand - and indeed all do not.
The mobile operators have certainly invested billions of dollars to modernize and improve the capacity and quality of functioning of their networks, but in some cities very consuming, as San Francisco, New York or London, users still face chronic problems of inability to access the network.
"To accompany the increase in the number of data-intensive applications, it is essential to have strong national programs in favor of broadband that encourage the provision additional spectrum and accelerated deployment of fiber optic networks - essential to the infrastructure of mobile services, "said the Secretary General of ITU Hamadoun Toure.
According to studies by the ITU, it appears that 98 countries have established national programs for high-speed, and that number should increase during the coming year .
The mobile broadband is increasingly the technology of choice for hundreds of millions of people in developing countries where wired infrastructure is often patchy and cost expensive to install.
According the ITU estimates, the number of subscribers to mobile broadband will reach one billion in the first quarter of 2011.
Since 90% of the planet is now served by a mobile signal, the motive appears clearly as a key to reducing the digital divide. In 2010, 73% of total mobile subscribers were inhabitants of developing countries.
In 2010, Dr. Touré led the creation of the Commission's "Broadband for Development digital ", to highlight the need for all States to promote broadband as a key driver of development and stimulate the deployment of broadband networks.
This Commission is co-chaired by President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, and Carlos Slim Helu, Chairman of Grupo Carso. Touré and Dr Irina Bokova, Director General of UNESCO, are the Vice-Presidents.
In its report presented in New York September Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the UN, the Commission recommended that leaders seek to establish a "virtuous circle of development of high-speed" and urged governments not to establish barriers to 'market entry, not to tax too heavily on broadband and related services and to ensure the availability of large portions of spectrum to support the growth of mobile broadband.
In anticipation of the next World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC), to be organized by the ITU in January 2012, operators in Europe and the U.S. have already begun to demand more spectrum for mobile communications and to seek harmonization of frequency allocations in contiguous blocks for the latest technologies generation.
It is almost certain that operators from other regions will follow suit, given that the new mobile broadband services very lucrative, such as mobile TV, are in full growth in the world.
Some believe that access to spare parts of the spectrum - or "white space" - could also help alleviate the shortage of frequencies.
The "digital dividend" spectrum released by the gradual transition to television and radio in the digital world is certainly one of the main concerns of national delegations will gather in Geneva for four weeks of WRC-12.
Source: United Nations, February 11, 2011
0 comments:
Post a Comment