This article intends to demonstrate - through the monitoring of traffic data - the importance of data transfer rate on mobile networks and prevalent user trends. Current paper examines both already operating mobile networks and ones presently in the state of standardization in order to shed light on the data transfer rate maximizing strategy, and to find out how a wide frequency spectrum should be necessary for handling growing user demands. Furthermore, recognizing the demand for the continuous expansion of data traffic, current article - relying on previous Cisco research and the analysis of broadband mobile networks - aims to estimate the necessary data transfer rate and the amount of increase in data usage regarding the next few years to serve the developing mobile technologies. In the world of IoT, M2M and Smart Cities, the available mobile networks most likely will not be able to sufficiently deal with the high traffic, the article seeks to answer whether the development of new mobile technologies (like the 5G) are in line with the growing needs of users and machines and to propose a solution for handling the expected data traffic.

KEY WORDS
data traffic, data transfer rate, trends, growing needs

CLASSIFICATION

JEL:

L86