Mobile Study Suggests Upgrade from 2G to 3G Helps Economies Grow
By Karla Robinson
December 5, 2012
December 5, 2012
- Mobile phone networks have proven to help economies grow, but a new study found that increasing coverage from 2G to 3G also has a notable impact.
- “By increasing the flow of information, mobile phones improve productivity and efficiency, and open up new markets and new kinds of business all across the economy,” Quartz writes. “Now there is evidence that improving mobile Internet access helps economies, too.”
- “The study by the GSM Association mobile trade group, Deloitte and Cisco, looked at 96 developed and developing markets from 2008 to 2011,” the article explains. “When a market experienced a 10 percent shift from 2G to 3G, GDP per capita growth increased by an average of 0.15 percentage points. A separate look into 14 countries between 2005 to 2010 found that a doubling of mobile data use led to an increase of 0.5 percentage points in per capita growth.”
- “The fact that increasing high-speed mobile broadband data usage leads to greater average per capita income underscores the need for increased investment in wireless networks as well as for government policies to foster that investment,” says Dr. Robert Pepper, Cisco’s vice president of global technology policy.
- Quartz qualifies the study’s conclusions, noting “the study’s sponsors have an obvious interest in promoting any evidence of a societal payoff from expensive wireless network upgrades.”
- Today, 18 percent of all mobile subscribers use 3G, amounting to 1 billion global users, which is an increase of more than one-third over last year.
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