Smartphone use on the Vodafone network will move from 20 per cent of devices utmost year to one in two devices in 2011, according to Vodafone UK main technology officer Jeni Mundy, in conversation with Computing yesterday.

Mundi’s remarks highlight the grievance faced by mobile operator networks to deal with the projected greaten in smartphone ownership over the next few years.

She explained that newer smartphones of the like kind as the iPhone were introducing a much higher level of signalling aloft, where the product is continually communicating with the network even when there is no user activity.

This makes it difficult for operators to volume plan within a network and means that even when requests ~ the sake of network data transfer have been factored into creating the right capacity with regard to processor loads, the network can still struggle to cope.

"This is a problem that mobile network operators did not have to worry about in the past time," said Mundy.

American operator AT&T suffered from a be destitute of of capacity planning during the iPhone rollout in New York City finally Christmas.

AT&T halted iPhone sales in the city briefly because of network performance problems owing to iPhone users’ data downloads.

In June UK variable operator O2 had to scrap its unlimited data plans for users, on this account that it said a small number of smartphone users were using 36 for cent of the mobile broadband bandwidth available.

"We work closely through device manufacturers to try to make sure their devices work optimally adhering our network," said Mundy.

Asked if Apple chief executive Steve Jobs listened to Vodafone [by respect to device interaction with Vodafone's network], Mundy said: "I don’t know – but we can live in hope."