Suggesting increased collaboration across the industry, Huawei said operators should invest in next generation technologies such as LTE to improve spectrum efficiency, expand spectrum resources, and provide the right infrastructure that enables more intensive coverage in hotspot areas.

Huawei notes ABI Research that estimates mobile end-users to generate more than 3.7 billion gigabytes of voice and data traffic by the end of this year. The research firm also expects the global annual mobile network traffic to increase to 20.4 billion gigabytes by 2015.

Speaking about the convenience brought by the smartphones, Jake Saunders, vice president for Forecasting at ABI Research, said although the devices present a world of opportunities, mobile operators need to make sure their networks do not grind to a halt under the traffic load.

Saunders said due to growing smartphone adoption in Asia, by 2012, the 2.6 billion gigabytes of mobile network traffic generated within the Asia Pacific will be more than the total combined mobile network traffic of Eastern Europe, Latin America, Middle East and Africa.