According to Juniper Research, Wi-Fi networks will carry almost 60 percent of smartphone and tablet data traffic by 2019. Further, global data traffic on smartphone and tablets will witness a fourfold growth and reach over 115,000 petabytes (PB) by 2019 in comparison to 30,000 PB in 2015.

The research firm states that a large number of operators are offloading to Wi-Fi networks as it helps address the issue of patchy coverage, increase the usage of existing 3G and 4G services enhance the potential for creating new services such as VoWi-Fi (Wi-Fi calling). .

Juniper Research underlines that operators are converting residential customers to community hotspot providers, particularly in the United States. For example, Wi-Fi service provider iPass has nearly 40 million community hotspots in 2014 and expects the number to more than double in 2015 to reach 90 million.

Going forward, North America and West Europe will together account for over 50 per cent of the global mobile data being offloaded in 2019. Meanwhile, Indian subcontinent is forecast to witness higher growth rates and increased market share of the total mobile data traffic over the next five years; with operators in India already witnessing close to 100 per cent year-on-year growth in data usage.