Mobile Internet: 85% Coverage in 2017

According to Ericsson's (NASDAQ:ERIC) second "Traffic and Market Report - On the Pulse of the Networked Society," 85% of the world's population will have Internet coverage via 3G wireless by 2017, and there will be close to 9 billion mobile subscriptions, compared to 6 billion by the end of 2011. Machine-to-machine subscriptions will add to this figure.Mobile broadband subscriptions are forecast to reach 5 billion in 2017, compared to 1 billion by the end of 2011. Ericsson also predicts that by 2017 half of the world's population will be covered by LTE/4G networks. Smartphone subscriptions are expected to number around 3 billion in 2017, compared to 700 million in 2011.