Due to the exponential growth of mobile technology use, mobile data revenue anticipates to make an enormous growth by the end of the year. Totaling $314.7 billion, the 23% increase can be attributed to the amount of smartphone and tablet users. By the end of 2011, worldwide mobile connections will reach 5.6 billion, which is up 11% from 5 billion in 2010.

Mobile data consists of everything that one does on the Internet through their smartphone or tablet. Any information that is obtained on the Internet through one of these devices must be downloaded to it. So every time you check the weather on your phone, or look something up on Wikipedia, that data is downloaded into your phone. You can decide how much data you want your phone to be able to download by the plan you choose through your service provider.

Because of the increase in mobile device usage and Internet usage, operators are having a tough time managing the capacity and pricing of mobile data plans. They do not want heavy Internet users clogging the networks, resulting in spotty and slow access for average Internet users. In order to sustain the growing data traffic, carriers are facing increases in network costs.

"What carriers need are innovative ways to increase data revenue while finding smart solutions to manage a growing demand in data," said Sylvain Fabre, research director at Gartner. "Ultimately, it will be the consumer who chooses the content he or she wants to use, and carriers need to ensure the quality of experience is good."

Andrew Farley