More broadband connections to boost GDP growth in Asia Pacific: GSMA

Increased broadband connections in Asia Pacific will generate $1.2 trillion of GDP growth and create up to 35 million new jobs by 2020, according to a new report from GSMA.

"However, this opportunity can only be realised if governments act now to fully release existing harmonised mobile spectrum bands and allocate more spectrum for mobile to meet rising consumer demand and support the development of new mobile services in the longer term," said the report, of the global GSM body.

The report, "Today, Tomorrow and the Future - Managing Data Demand in Asia Pacific", was developed by Analysys Mason with global analysis from Huawei.

"As this new report highlights, there is an urgent need for regulators across Asia Pacific and around the world to assign further mobile spectrum to enable the penetration rates and social and economic benefits promised, while avoiding interference along country borders," said David Wang, president, Huawei Wireless Networks.

"This will ensure that operators in the region can support governments' broadband access goals with the investments necessary to deploy next generation mobile technology, benefiting both business and society," he added.

The findings of the report are further supported by the GSMA's spectrum estimation model, which predicts a global shortfall of mobile spectrum of between 600 to 800MHz.

The GSMA's model finds that there is insufficient spectrum available in the Asia Pacific region to meet predicted future mobile traffic growth and support planned advances in technology.

"With consumers increasingly using mobile devices to access the internet, 3 billion mobile broadband (3G and 4G) connections are predicted in Asia Pacific by 2020, consuming over 50,000 petabytes of data per year," the report said.