Yesterday Sandvine released its semi-annual Internet report where we shared observations from a cross-section of the world’s leading mobile data providers. Interestingly enough, the key take away was that mobile networks are very similar to fixed line. Sandvine continues to see evidence that mobile data is becoming mainstream phenomena as subscribers rely on their mobile connections to do the same things they do on their home PCs. In fact, voice is consuming an ever smaller percentage of overall mobile network traffic. According to a March report by analyst Chetan Sharma, GigaOM Pro Analyst Network, U.S. data traffic exceeded voice traffic by almost 400,000 GB in 2009 and that ratio is expected to double this year. It’s clear, mobile data usage and revenues are disconnected.

So what does this mean for mobile operators? We believe that as more and more applications are offered on mobile devices, operators are looking to predict usage patterns so they can offer personalized service tiers that increase customer satisfaction, and to build out their networks to match user demand. AT&T recently stated that “5 percent of users account for approximately half of the data traffic on average” so clearly flat-rate billing does not align with subscriber usage (see Fierce Wireless: Mobile data traffic patterns look similar to fixed broadband patterns).

And for subscribers? Hopefully it means more and more applications along with appropriate service tiers that economically keep our lives connected to the Internet, everywhere.

Some of the high-level findings of Sandvine’s report include interesting observations like social networking accounting for up to 9% of total bytes on any given mobile network and YouTube accounting for 10 to 15 percent of total bytes on any given mobile network. To download the full report visit http://www.sandvine.com/news/global_broadband_trends.asp.