Huawei Technologies discussed its views on the future of mobile internet at the fourth annual Huawei Asia Pacific CTO Forum, hosted in Hong Kong and themed “Mobile Internet: Today and Tomorrow.” About 100 C-level executives representing more than 50 telecom operators from around the Asia Pacific region participated in collaborative discussions on how to address pressing industry challenges and how to leverage the huge business opportunities created by the booming mobile broadband service market.

Huawei led the discussion, providing new insights on its forecasts for the future development of mobile broadband, as well as working with operators to determine how they can best leverage the rapid growth of this sector. Leading market intelligence company ABI Research has estimated that mobile end-users will generate more than 3.7 billion gigabytes of voice and data traffic by the end of 2010. By 2015, global annual mobile network traffic will balloon to 20.4 billion gigabytes.

“Everyone loves their smartphone and the convenience it is able to provide: Push email at their fingertips, the latest gaming app installed just this morning, checking in with friends on Facebook, following the gossip about their favorite movie star on Twitter,” said Jake Saunders, vice president for Forecasting at ABI Research. “While this presents a world of opportunities for prosumers, it is a call to action for mobile operators, as they need to make sure their networks do not grind to a halt under the traffic load.”

In Asia, smartphone adoption can be found in every market. Demand is driven not only by Japan, Taiwan and Australia, but also by India, the Philippines, and China. “As a result, by 2012, the 2.6 billion gigabytes of mobile network traffic generated within Asia Pacific will amount to more than the total combined mobile network traffic of Eastern Europe, Latin America, Middle East and Africa,” added Saunders.

With the rapid growth of mobile broadband service, network evolution is becoming one of the key crucial factors to differentiate an operator’s value today. Towards this end, Huawei indicated that mobile Internet growth calls for highly effective coordination between the terminal, the pipe, and the cloud platform.

“Without a robust cloud computing infrastructure and accompanying network support, smartphones and tablets lose many of their capabilities and simply become expensive toys for adults,” said Mr. Weimin Ying, president of LTE network product line for Huawei Technologies. “The mobile broadband industry is facing a total transformation. Services will be increasingly in the cloud, everyone needs the pipe to deliver these services to consumers, and consumers will require constant mobility. To capitalize on the surging demand and to accommodate the 500-fold increase in mobile broadband traffic over the next decade, there must be increased collaboration across the industry. Operators need to focus on three key areas to take advantage of the popularity of mobile broadband and mobile internet: Invest in next generation technologies such as LTE to improve spectrum efficiency, expand spectrum resources, and provide the right infrastructure that enables more intensive coverage in ‘hotspot’ areas,” Ying added.