Around 418 million people across the globe will be accessing the internet through their portable laptops and netbooks via mobile broadband by 2017, according to one prediction.

Such users will also produce $48 billion (£29 billion) in operator revenues in that year, while consuming and creating 1.8 exabytes of traffic per month, according to the Coda Research Consultancy.

This will mark a forty-fold increase on 2009 figures, with one-fifth believed to be taken up by P2P services.

Meanwhile, over half of the broadband traffic is understood to be video, making it a questionable environment for rights holders.

Steve Smith, founder of Coda Research, said: "Asia Pacific is going to be the hotbed for growth but it is a complex picture of emerging markets, developed markets and even markets that will leapfrog 3G altogether."

Coda carries out a number of surveys with companies from around the world, including the likes of Dell, Cisco, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Microsoft and the BBC.

According to a recent survey by Connect, the two biggest IT headaches for businesses were 'everyday hassles with IT' (37 per cent) and 'security concerns' (32 per cent).