Networks expand 6x faster with mobile broadband demand, says Ericsson

Wireless telecommunications company Ericsson announced on Wednesday that it has delivered its two millionth radio base station. The accomplishment is significant because it illustrates the speed at which wireless networks are growing thanks to the high demand for mobile broadband. Ericsson says it took just three years to ship the second million radios, when it took more than 20 to ship the first million.

Ericsson traces that first million back to the early days of modern cellular telephones, when it built the first GSM network with Radiolinja (now Elisa) in Finland in 1991. It wasn't until nearly a decade later that the company's first GSM base station for data was launched in February 2000.

"Ericsson's milestone delivery is proof of the explosive growth of mobile broadband," Ericsson's Ulf Ewaldsson, Vice President and Head of Radio Networks said in a statement. "The exponential growth in consumer adoption, data speeds and technology advancements continues to transform the way people communicate."