The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) recently announced the release of its 2012 ICT Market Review & Forecast (MR&F).

Many of the most significant findings from this year’s report focus on the impact of the rapid growth of smartphones and tablets, cloud-related services, and video streaming. These devices and services are driving dramatic traffic surges and demanding increased network infrastructure investment.

Infrastructure spending rose dramatically in the past 2 years, in large part because of federal stimulus spending. While network backbone spending will come down from its stimulus-fueled recent dramatic highs, TIA’s MR&F says it will still remain robust in the years ahead.

“The rapid advancement of smartphones, cloud services, and video is placing an increasingly enormous demand on the network,” said TIA President Grant Seiffert. “These devices and services have not only become essential for consumers, they have become critical for American businesses. And for this reason, the companies that support both wired and wireless networks are expected to spend nearly 41 percent more in the next 4 years than was spent in the previous 4 years.”

Per TIA’s MR&F, key facts related to this trend include:
• Global Internet traffic will quadruple by 2015.
• In 5 years, mobile broadband traffic will be 35 times what it is currently.
• Combined U.S. spending on wireless and wired network infrastructure will grow from the $210 billion spent over the last 4 years, to $296 billion over the next 4 years; $70 billion will be spent in 2012.
• Spending on U.S. IT-based cloud computing will continue to be the fastest-growing category, increasing by more than 23 percent in 2012.

TIA’s annual ICT Market Review & Forecast collects and analyzes a wide range of industry data, and looks at the economic, technology and public policy drivers behind the numbers. The report includes very specific data related to key industry segments, including wireless data, wireline data, landline equipment, conferencing services, wired Internet access, network equipment, and more. It also presents high level data related to global ICT industry spending.
 
The 2012 ICT MR&F can be ordered at the TIA website.
Source: TIA - www.tiaonline.org

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