7 Conclusions This Report investigates the trends in the growth of IMT traffic from 2020 to 2030. It describes the many drivers influencing the growth of future IMT traffic such as the adoption of devices with enhanced capabilities that require increased bit-rates and bandwidth, increased video usage, device proliferation and application uptake. Similar drivers increased traffic in the transition from IMT2000 to IMT-Advanced. These drivers are expected to evolve over time, and this evolution will differ between countries due to social and economic differences. These drivers and other trends which impact traffic growth are detailed in the Report. This Report contains global IMT traffic estimates for the years 2020 to 2030 from several sources. These estimates anticipate that global IMT traffic will grow in the range of 10-100 times over this period. Note that the variations in the forecasted traffic are due to different assumptions used in these studies. Moreover, the Report includes an estimate of national traffic growth of between 50 and 100 times over this period, as depicted in Annex 2. Traffic asymmetry aspects for this period are also presented in this Report. It is observed that the current average traffic asymmetry ratio of mobile broadband is in favour of the downlink, and this is expected to increase due to growing demand for audio-visual content. List of acronyms and abbreviations CAGR Compound annual growth rate CEE Central and Eastern Europe DVR Digital video recorder FBB Fixed broadband HSPA High speed packet access IMT International Mobile Telecommunications LAA Licensed assisted access LTE/LTE-Advanced Long term evolution/long term evolution-advanced MBB Mobile broadband M2M Machine-to-machine NAR American Region OTT Over-the-top QoE Quality of experience RAT Radio Access Technology TCP ACK Transmission control protocol acknowledgment UL/DL Uplink/downlink UHD Ultra high definition UN United Nations VoIP IP
7 Conclusions This Report investigates the trends in the growth of IMT traffic from 2020 to 2030. It describes the many drivers influencing the growth of future IMT traffic such as the adoption of devices with enhanced capabilities that require increased bit-rates and bandwidth, increased video usage, device proliferation and application uptake. Similar drivers increased traffic in the transition from IMT2000 to IMT-Advanced. These drivers are expected to evolve over time, and this evolution will differ between countries due to social and economic differences. These drivers and other trends which impact traffic growth are detailed in the Report. This Report contains global IMT traffic estimates for the years 2020 to 2030 from several sources. These estimates anticipate that global IMT traffic will grow in the range of 10-100 times over this period. Note that the variations in the forecasted traffic are due to different assumptions used in these studies. Moreover, the Report includes an estimate of national traffic growth of between 50 and 100 times over this period, as depicted in Annex 2. Traffic asymmetry aspects for this period are also presented in this Report. It is observed that the current average traffic asymmetry ratio of mobile broadband is in favour of the downlink, and this is expected to increase due to growing demand for audio-visual content. List of acronyms and abbreviations CAGR Compound annual growth rate CEE Central and Eastern Europe DVR Digital video recorder FBB Fixed broadband HSPA High speed packet access IMT International Mobile Telecommunications LAA Licensed assisted access LTE/LTE-Advanced Long term evolution/long term evolution-advanced MBB Mobile broadband M2M Machine-to-machine NAR American Region OTT Over-the-top QoE Quality of experience RAT Radio Access Technology TCP ACK Transmission control protocol acknowledgment UL/DL Uplink/downlink UHD Ultra high definition UN United Nations VoIP IP
R-REP-M.2370-2015-MSW-E.docx