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iGR, market research consultancy specialising in wireless and mobile induspublished a new report entitled U.S. WiFi Offload Traffic Forecast, 2012 - 2017: Relief for Mobile Data Networks?. The report provides detailed forecasts for the growth in WiFi, which was broken down into 3 distinct categories - WiFi Only, WiFi Offload (user driven) and WiFi Offload (carrier driven). The report anticipates a CAGR of 215 percent for WiFi Offload (carrier driven) and 49 percent growth for user driven for the period of 2012 - 2017. As more operators move to LTE, WiFi offload, whether its managed by the operator or by the end-user themselves will definitely be a key feature to serve an increasing number of people who are on the go and therefore have ready access to multiple WiFi hotspots and also as means to manage traffic and provide seamless roaming experience for data subscribers.
"WiFi offload is becoming a critical component in the hetnet and iGR believes that WiFi data usage will grow strongly over the forecast period," said Iain Gillott, president and founder of iGR, a market research consultancy focused on the wireless and mobile industry. "Although WiFi Offload is a relatively small portion of the overall pie right now, it will grow to be larger than WiFi Only in terms of petabytes per month by 2016. For the mobile operators, WiFi offload can provide some critical relief for congested 3G and 4G networks."
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