As recently as 2008, some estimates had fixed broadband connections outnumbering mobile broadband by about a four to one margin.
By 2010, just two years later, the number of mobile broadband subscribers around the world surpassed that of fixed broadband. By 2012 mobile broadband subscriptions outnumbered fixed subscriptions about three to one.
By 2015, it is anticipated that there will be 3.1 billion mobile broadband subscribers compared to 848 million fixed broadband subscribers, meaning mobile will outnumber fixed about five to one.
One might argue that change has happened so fast that most people have not yet had a chance to figure out what it means. For one thing, mobile now has become the dominant way people access the Internet globally. On the other hand, mobile access also has meant that access speeds are relatively slow, compared to fixed access.
But there is a line of thinking that widespread 4G could change value propositions and market shares even more. 4G Americas reports that 150 operators worldwide have now launched commercial LTE services in 67 countries, 50 of which were launched in the past five months.
"4G Americas expects more than 100 LTE network launches in 2013, the group 4G Americas says. The group expects 63 million LTE connections at the end of 2012, with subscriptions doubling in 2013 to 134 million LTE connections.
With 4G access speeds now replicating, in many cases, digital subscriber line speeds, some service provider executives will be seriously looking at ways to use LTE as a primary access network, displacing the fixed network.
Up to this point, raw speed and price per bit have been major advantages for fixed networks. But 4G could be disruptive, encouraging more service providers to substitute LTE for fixed network access.
Oddly enough, the use case, if not the value proposition represented by a mobile network, might be changing, and in an unexpected way. At the same time LTE threatens to open a new front in the mobile substitution process (as mobile voice has displaced a significant amount of fixed network voice), the ways people behave might arguably be strengthening the value proposition for fixed access.
Oddly enough, the changes enhance the role of the fixed network role, compared to the role of the mobile network.
Ironically, as valuable as fully mobile access is, people often do not use the mobile feature as much as one might suppose.
In fact, as early as 2010, hugely significant percentages of total device access used the fixed network (Wi-Fi) rather than the mobile network, Analysys Mason has argued.
Proportion of mobile network traffic that is generated indoors, by region
Ironically, just as 4G is starting to narrow the gap between mobile broadband and fixed broadband, users-perhaps reacting to the higher cost of mobile broadband-have been shifting their smart phone usage to the fixed networks. That works because most “mobile device” Internet access happens at home, with a significant percentage at other locations where it is possible to default ot Wi-Fi access.
That is not to say people would behave in just the same way if prices per bit were the same, on both fixed and mobile networks, and if usage allowances could be shared as easily on mobile networks as on fixed networks. All other things being equal, people probably would not care which network was used, if the cost of fixed data usage, and mobile data usage, were roughly equivalent.
The point is that, given the current circumstances, people are shifting most of their smart phone Internet access activities to the fixed networks, and appear to be doing the same with their tablets. One easily can argue that mobile service provider shared data plans are precisely an attempt by mobile service providers to narrow the value-price gap with fixed services.
At the same time, one might argue that fixed networks now account for half to 80 percent of all mobile device access, in addition to supporting all the other devices people traditionally have used on their fixed network services.
If, in a few years, as much as 90 percent of mobile Internet access uses a fixed network connection, one might also argue that most of the value of mobile broadband is devalued.
One might argue that could, or must, lead to lower per-bit prices for LTE access, and higher per-bit prices for fixed services, since it is the fixed services that supply 90 percent or more of the value of all Internet access.
In that sense, saying that the value of the wired networks is backhaul, whether for for small cells, macrocells or Wi-Fi, does not devalue the fixed network, but highlights its new role.
In a large sense, the access network always has been about backhaul, if “access” to network resources can be described as backhaul. Also, in a large sense, all access methods, no matter what the final “tail” circuit might be, have simply been ways to connect an end user device to the resources of the core network.
In an odd way, that could be more true than ever in a world where most devices are either mobile or untethered, and even in a world where mobile broadband is reasonably fast, even compared to many other terrestrial alternatives.
Wouldn't it be ironic if faster mobile access both allowed mobile networks to compete with fixed networks, and, at the same time, value shifted to the fixed networks?
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