Mobile Video the Next Big Thing?

Mobile video is considered by many to be among the next big things in mobility use and service provider revenue.

It likely also will be a big driver of consumption calculators, bigger data plans and at-home or Wi-Fi connections.

The reason is physics. Video requires two orders of magnitude worth of bandwidth compared to most other applications. That's a 100 times greater load placed on a network and a user's bandwidth cap.

Some people think Wi-Fi is a transitional access technology, to be replaced by mobile broadband connections. That's not likely. In the business world, Wi-Fi is replacing Ethernet wired networks on a permanent basis.

In the consumer space, Wi-Fi is replacing wired connections as well. And in the public space, Wi-Fi is getting much more use by mobile handsets, where the original connected device was a PC. As video consumption grows, users quickly are going to figure out they can reduce pressure on their bandwidth caps by using Wi-Fi as often as possible, and especially for video streaming or downloads.

Mobile video might be the next big thing in any number of ways.