April 11 - 3:25pm EDT   Continuing a string of research on the cellphone industry, ABI Research today said in a new report that it expects the use of mobile webbrowsers to grow ten times its size in the next five years. The analysis firm estimates that 76 million copies of browsers were in use by the end of 2007 but that this should grow to 700 million by 2013. The surge is credited to a surge in smartphone use, which is expected to bring full web browsing as well as a greater number of mobile-oriented websites. [full story]

April 11 - 12:35pm EDT   Unlimited cellular plans, and particularly data plans, are liable to create severe pressure on the providers that host them even as the make new features available, says a new study from ABI Research. Analysts at the group warn that the promise to carriers of new subscribers through mostly or completely unlimited plans from AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon may be offset by the need to support very likely spikes in network traffic. Providers are likely to spend extra to make sure their networks can handle the load, ABI says. [full story]