The growth of 3G mobile broadband consumption is set to slow during the next two years, one industry expert has claimed.

Ronan de Renesse, senior analyst at Screen Digest, believes that the performance of such services when compared to expectations could be a major stumbling block.

He said: "The service can be patchy and users become frustrated - many will switch back to fixed broadband if operators don't act quickly."

Mr de Renesse added that mobile broadband providers had "trapped customers into long-term contracts" and subsequently been unable to deliver the network speeds initially promised.

According to Screen Digest, the highest adoption rates of 3G wireless connections in Europe last year were seen in Ireland, Portugal, Greece and Austria.

A recent investigation by Juniper Research suggested that mobile broadband could become particularly popular among businesses, with 722 million connections being made worldwide by 2014.