Analyst firm Gartner says global mobile connections will reach 5,6bn in 2011, up 11% from 5bn in 2010. It expects the number to grow steadily to 2015, when the figure will reach 7,4bn.

The company reckons mobile data services revenue will be worth US$314,7bn in 2011, a 22,5% increase from $257bn in 2010, and will reach $552bn in 2015.

Gartner says operators need to offer more flexible data plans to consumers if they are to keep up with increasing demands for data and declining voice revenues.

Principal research analyst Jessica Ekholm says that mobile data traffic will increase significantly, propelled by a greater number of smartphones and tablets in use. “Mobile data volumes will continue to grow as mobile data networks become faster and more ubiquitous, while at the same time the number of data users and data usage per user is expected to grow,” she says.

“Data revenue will continue to grow, but at a much slower rate,” she adds. “This is causing a decoupling between revenue and data traffic and it is also creating an increase in network costs for carriers as they try to sustain growing data traffic.”

Gartner says there are four main mobile data traffic drivers: growth in mobile connections; increasing availability of higher speed, data-centric mobile networks; smartphones; and data-consuming content and applications.

It expects there will be a shift in users’ perception of mobile data as data plans go from being seen as a luxury to being considered a nice-to-have service to finally being perceived as potentially essential.

Gartner expects service providers to offer more flexible and more personalised data plans, which should help capture a larger mobile data user base. It says service providers upgrading their networks and offering faster download and upload speeds has helped improve the general perception of data quality and led to increased uptake.

“What carriers need are innovative ways to increase data revenue while finding smart solutions to manage a growing demand in data,” said Sylvain Fabre, research director at Gartner. “Ultimately, it will be the consumer that chooses the content they want to use and carriers need to ensure that the quality of experience is good. A substandard user experience may lead to higher churn.

Gartner analysts say carriers should investigate the pros and the cons of more customised pricing plans, such as tiered pricing and usage-based plans, while carefully weighing additional costs and future benefits.

Additionally, service providers should look to offer increased flexibility in pricing and introduce add-on pricing models in which users are able to add data access when they want to.

These add-on pricing models could include paying for additional usage and additional speed, and charging a fee for voice-over-Internet Protocol telephony or for gaming.

“Carriers should focus on increasing the level of clarity and the transparency of their mobile data contracts in order to make the majority of customers feel more at ease in using data services. This is particularly important when it comes to data roaming,” says Ekholm.

“Offering clients various ways of being able to track and monitor their data usage would help carriers receive a larger amount of revenue from more profitable lower-usage, medium-pay users.” — Staff reporter, TechCentral