According to a new report from Juniper Research, the majority of mobile traffic will transfer onto fixed networks via wi-fi and femtocells by 2015.

The company has found that 63 per cent of traffic generated by smartphones, featurephones and tablets will be offloaded from mobile networks by that date. The forecast means that by 2015, the annual data traffic offloaded from operators networks via wi-fi and femtocells will be 9,000 petabytes – roughly equivalent to 11bn movie downloads. 

Juniper says the percentage of traffic offloaded in developed markets will diminish towards the end of the forecast period, and will begin to plateau in several other regions, due to the accelerating take-up of LTE. The volume of data traffic offloaded from mobile networks will continue to grow strongly throughout the next five years, as the total volume of data traffic delivered to mobile devices accelerates. 

According to Mobile Data Offload & Onload report author Nitin Bhas: “As a high percentage of mobile data consumption occurs while indoors or in motion, operators have an opportunity to offload data traffic onto complementary fixed networks via wi-fi and femtocells. Offloading also has the potential for creating new services and applications and enhancing the usage of existing services.”

The report recommends that operators view offloading solutions as being complementary to their 3G/4G network investments.

A video whitepaper and details of the Mobile Data Offload & Onload: WiFi & Femtocell Integration Strategies 2011-2015 report can be downloaded here.