A new report from Juniper Research says mobile network operators urgently need to spend billions of dollars increasing capacity and optimising their backhaul networks to meet the demands of mobile broadband users.

The report calculates that operators need to spend almost $840 billion (£530 billion) globally over the next five years.

Mark Bridge writes:

Today's news summary is a little early because I'm on holiday this afternoon. I'll be leaving Iain and James in charge... and, even though it's traditionally the "silly season", they'll have plenty to talk about in Wednesday's podcast.

A week ago, the big news in our podcast was Google's purchase of Motorola Mobility. This week it was HP's move away from webOS devices. And now we hear that Steve Jobs has stepped down from the CEO role at Apple, although he's remaining with the company as Chairman of the Board.

A BBC survey into 3G coverage across the UK has shown that people who were able to receive a data connection only managed to use a 3G signal for 75% of the time.

For almost a quarter of the time they were connecting to 2G GPRS technology.

The BBC is conducting a month-long survey that's designed to measure the availability of 2G and 3G mobile phone services in the UK. It's using an Android application that'll collect information and will anonymise it.

The UK 3G Survey app has been developed for the BBC by Epitiro.

Informa Telecoms & Media has calculated that 3G femtocells now outnumber conventional 3G base stations.

In fact, its latest report calculates there are more than 2.3 million 3G femtocells around the world compared to 1.6 million conventional 3G base stations.