Global recession unlikely to dent mobile broadband investment

As the GSMA's Mobile World Congress gets underway today in Barcelona, the recession and its impact on the market is certain to be one of the major talking points. But indications are that although the recession is being felt in the mobile communications markets, it will not necessarily impact on spending.

Analyst research among the main operators, commissioned by mobile messaging infrastructure specialist Airwide Solutions, showed the economic downturn would not, in most cases, greatly affect planned spend. And the investment is all about the data services - the main areas identified for investment are mobile social networking and mobile applications, followed closely by mobile broadband, with 65 per cent of operators looking to invest over the coming year.

The standard advice to companies on surviving a recession, and even coming out ahead, is to keep spending - on marketing, on research and development, on service improvements, so that when things start to pick up again they find themselves in a good position to move forwards. But it is nice to see that with mobile broadband and other data services representing a growth market, much of that investment will going into better, faster, more reliable mobile broadband.