According to analysts, mobile broadband providers are reeling under heavy usage and increasing data flow across networks.

Coming in the wake of expectations that wireless and mobile broadband usage will show unprecedented growth over the next few years, the finding that even current data usage levels are affecting existing services comes as a disquieting piece of news for both service providers and users. Analysts are making no bones about the fact that the situation will worsen.

Telecoms analyst Informa Telecoms and Media has forecasted a 25-fold increase in mobile data flow by 2012. With providers already under the strain of heavy use, it is evident that this kind of growth cannot be supported by existing systems unless something is done about it. The new LTE technology, which is in the pipeline, may be a solution, but this will not be deployable until 2011 or 2012.

According to Informa analyst Dimitris Mavrakis, both the US and the UK networks are already overwhelmed by heavy traffic. He added that this was especially true of high demand areas like London and New York.

With the growing interest in 3G-enabled smart phones, more and more people are beginning to access mobile broadband from different locations in both countries. The traffic is growing enormously and networks are soon going to start showing the ill effects of overloading.

Mavrakis says operators have three options to stop the situation form worsening – improve equipment used for the service, ignore the problem, or upgrade the network.

While LTE is not yet ready for launch, users may be required to depend on HSPA + technology to tide things over for now.

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