Mobile will be worth more than $1 trillion by 2016

But costs could be even higher because of data traffic, warns report.

Juniper says cellular network data traffic, which more than doubled in 2010, and is expected to increase by more than 13 times to 25,000 petabytes per annum by 2015 (that's 25bn gigabytes).

It contends that the backhaul costs of delivering this data, and the investment needed to improve the networks, comprise a potential nightmare for the operators – with core services being cannibalised and ARPU tumbling.

So the report suggests pursuing new revenue streams, reducing operating costs and being imaginative around tariffs.

It also emphasises the need to explore cloud services , M2M and mobile financial services where operators can leverage their existing assets.

Report author Dr Windsor Holden said: "Clearly, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for MNOs, simply because the circumstances of individual operators differ widely, even within the same market.