A new report from ABI Research calculates that the number of people accessing social networks from mobile phones will exceed 550 million this year.

By the end of 2016 the figure will treble to over 1.7 billion users worldwide, which means over two-thirds of all social network users will be using mobiles to access the services.

Analyst firm Berg Insight says HSPA and LTE mobile technology accounted for 20.6% of the total number of broadband connections on PCs and tablets in Europe at the end of 2010.

The number of mobile broadband subscribers grew by 33% year-on-year in 2010 to 33.9 million and is expected to keep growing to 96 million by 2016. In North America the figures were lower, with mobile broadband accounting for just 13.2% of the total number of connections.

Twitter is expanding its text message ‘tweeting’ service to allow photos via MMS.

Although Orange UK first introduced the feature via its Snapshot site in November 2009, Twitter is now making the feature available itself on a number of networks worldwide.

US-based market research from The NPD Group says smartphone owners are concerned about mobile security threats to their phones but very few have taken any action.

Almost 40% of all smartphone users are concerned about activity monitoring, hacking, credit card security and viruses, while more than a third worry about harmful apps, malicious emails and location tracking. Yet 82% of smartphone users have no security products installed on their phones.

Desi Mobile, a UK virtual mobile network that targeted the British Asian market, has closed.

It was offering ‘pay monthly’ SIM-only deals connected via the Vodafone network.