Ericsson CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg: Mobile broadband is becoming a mass market

With 128 commercial HSPA networks rolled out and more than 300 HSPA devices available around the world, mobile broadband is moving quickly toward becoming a mass market, Ericsson President and Chief Executive Officer Carl-Henric Svanberg said today at the company's Strategy and Technology Summit in London.

As evidence he gave several examples where, in commercially launched HSPA networks, data traffic has quadrupled over the past year and is accelerating. Ericsson has laid the foundation for this development with its technology, which connects more than one billion people around the world.

Svanberg said: "This is an exciting development in our industry. HSPA with speeds of 7.2 Mbps is now being launched, and we will see embedded modems in early 2008. This indicates that mobile broadband is already becoming part of our daily lives."

Svanberg also elaborated on the continued demand for telecommunications in developing markets in which GSM is built out for coverage and capacity and, in parallel, networks are upgraded to HSPA.

Svanberg continued: "We see clearly that the mobile phone will be essential in closing the digital divide. Mobility is a key contributor to productivity and quality of life in developing countries".

In mature markets, mobile broadband services are becoming more prominent in peoples' lives as networks become capable of delivering them. At the same time, there are major expansions in fixed broadband networks, in which intelligence is being moved toward the edge.

Other speakers from Ericsson at the Strategy and Technology Summit were Karl-Henrik Sundström, CFO, Joakim Westh, head of strategy and Håkan Eriksson, Chief Technology Officer. Featured were also speakers from Sony Ericsson; Miles Flint, CEO, Björn Ahlberg, head of Content & Service Development, and Howard Lewis, head of PBU Entry.