HetNets: Opportunities and Challenges 

With the explosion of mobile data services expected, operators around the globe are seeking ways to expand capacity in their networks. This capacity need is driven by the deployment of smartphones that are data centric and based on new data services – mostly video – that are hungrily consuming bandwidth and capacity in the networks.

The industry is predicting that growth in users of smart devices will increase four- to five-fold by the end of 2014, and that the resulting data traffic will grow 30 to 40 times in volume. Mobile video is predicted to be the major driver of traffic in the network with estimates forecasting that it will drive 70 to 75 percent of the mobile traffic growth over the next few years.