AS smartphones, with their promise of computing abilities, lure consumers into mobile data, the rate of information travelling over mobile networks has grown hugely.

Such is the rate of growth that broadband equipment maker Cisco has forecast Australian monthly mobile data traffic will surge 32-fold between 2010 and 2015 to hit 148,705 terabytes, equivalent to 410 million text messages, as consumers flock to the convenience of always-on, anywhere, mobile devices including smartphones and tablet computers such as the iPad.

This mobile data growth has reached the point where Australians are consuming 4587TB of data a month on their mobile phones, a 260 per cent increase on the levels recorded in 2009, says Cisco.

This has propelled Australia to the eighth position for wireless broadband penetration in the world, according to the latest broadband rankings from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

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