According to Ericsson study, the mobile broadband user base in India is estimated to further increase four times in the next six years. Ajay Gupta, vice president and head of strategy and marketing Ericsson India said that the company estimates that India's mobile subscriber base will grow from 795 million in 2013 to 1,145 million subscribers by 2020. And in the same period smartphone penetration will grow from 10% or 90 million devices in 2013 to 45% or 520 million devices, against 50 billion global connected devices by 2020. He further added, "We also expect to see 3G SIMs to grow from 70 million SIMs today to 400 million SIMs by 2020, and 4G SIMS should number 100 million in the same period."

The mobile subscriber base will grow from 795 million in 2013 to 1145 million subscribers by 2020. In 2013, the average data usage stood at 155MB per month, which is expected to reach 390MB per month per user by 2017 and by 2020 this number will touch 620MB a month. Mobile broadband usage is on the rise with social media, web browsing and chat driving more than a third of the mobile broadband traffic currently.

                                                    

There has also been an increase in the online video consumption over the past few years. Users also value superior network performance as they rate network reliability, coverage and speed.

Operators looking to effectively monetize broadband services and tap future growth opportunities need to significantly invest in scaling network performance.