Mobile Now Generates 20% U.S. Web Traffic

According to a report by online advertising network Chitika, smartphones account for 14.6% and tablets 5.6% of total web traffic in the U.S. and Canada. And while we're on the topic of mobile broadband, here are some other interesting tidbits from Cisco's Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, 2011-2016:

• Last year's mobile data traffic was eight times the size of the entire global Internet in 2000. Global mobile data traffic in 2011 (597 petabytes per month) was over eight times greater than the total global Internet traffic in 2000 (75 petabytes per month).
• Mobile video traffic exceeded 50 percent for the first time in 2011. Mobile video traffic was 52 percent of traffic by the end of 2011.
• Mobile network connection speeds grew 66 percent in 2011. Globally, the average mobile network downstream speed in 2011 was 315 kilobits per second (kbps), up from 189 kbps in 2010. The average mobile network connection speed for smartphones in 2011 was 1344 kbps, up from 968 kbps in 2010.

This underscores the importance of validating and improving mobile broadband access across the state.