Wireless Data Traffic: A Decade of Change

This paper presents an overview of the most significant changes in wireless data traffic and its main driving forces throughout the past decade (1998-2008). The main axes of change are discussed: wireless technology, user population, and applications. Evolution of wireless technology realized a 200-fold increase in data rate, and facilitated a continuous enrichment of the traffic mix traversing legacy and modern wireless networks. New applications emerged, such as Peer-To-Peer (P2P) file sharing, online gaming, and multimedia, establishing a trend of significant increase in traffic volume. User population has also increased and even saturated some markets.