During Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam’s speech at the NAB conference on Tuesday in Las Vegas, he noted that roughly half of the traffic on Verizon’s mobile networks currently involves video. And by 2017, Verizon expects that percentage to grow to two-thirds. Is this the average trend across mobile consumption or is Verizon an exception? The answer may lie in LTE.

“At first glance, it would appear that Verizon just is keeping with the global average. Cisco Systems’ Visual Networking Index pegs video at 51 percent of all traffic bound for mobile devices. But Cisco is counting on all traffic to mobile smartphones and tablets whether they’re connected to cellular or Wi-Fi networks. According to Cisco’s calculations one third of ‘mobile’ traffic never hits the cell tower, traversing Wi-Fi networks instead,” writes GigaOM.

Additionally, McAdam claims that video now accounts for more than half the load on its mobile airwaves. And he can explain why. It’s because of LTE.

“As its customers move to LTE’s faster pipe, the video experience improves — buffering and choppiness drop away — which in turn encourages more video watching. In fact, a better connection seems to naturally beget more data usage in general. Only 23 percent of Verizon’s subscribers have an LTE device, but they account for well over 50 percent of Verizon’s network traffic,” notes the article.

But while this bump in usage is great for business, there’s also a downfall. It’s costly.

“That’s probably why we’ve been hearing McAdam talk up new mobile video technologies like LTE-broadcast lately. By streaming content to multiple users simultaneously — either for immediate or later consumption — Verizon can deliver more video at less cost. Theoretically, at least, it can pass those sizable savings on to its customers, thus encouraging mobile video’s growth,” adds the article.