Mobile ARPU Illustrates Service Provider Issues

U.S. mobile service provider average revenue per user decreased by $0.45 over the last year, says analyst Chetan Sharma.

Average voice ARPU declined by $0.98 while the average data ARPU grew by $0.53.

Therein lies the problem: mobile service providers are growing data revenues, but losing voice revenue faster than they are able to replace the lost revenues.

That isn't to say they will not ultimately succeed in replacing the lion's share of lost voice revenue. But few executives likely believe the substitution will be one-for-one, or greater, at least in terms of broadband access replacing core voice revenues.

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Mobile VoIP is Inevitable, Yankee Group Says

Flat-rate data pricing has made mobile VoIP applications inevitable, and over time, all U.S. carriers will end up allowing them, says Yankee Group analyst Carl Howe. That, in turn, is going to have profound impact on the mobile service provider business model, as voice now is the key revenue driver.

Some of the effects are easy to predict. International call traffic will migrate to VoIP. In the U.S. market, for example, domestic voice calling minutes are cheap, but international rates are fairly high.

On the other hand, mobile VoIP also will shift international traffic from the landline networks (including use of VoIP from fixed broadband connections) to the mobile network.

Less easily quantified is the boost mobile VoIP will give to purchase and use of specific handsets, and the emergence of specific mobile VoIP user segments. For example, devices with front-facing cameras potentially can become the foundation for mobile videoconferencing services and applications.

If you think of BlackBerries as "email" centric phones, and iPhones as "mobile Web" phones, while other devices are "social networking" or "navigation" oriented, you can see where the niches might be.

It is conceivable that "flat-rate data plan caps will tighten," says Howe. Mobile service providers might try to avoid a wholesale collapse of voice revenue by trying to manage network capacity through through more-stringent bandwidth caps.

The operative word in that sentence, however, is “trying,” says Howe. Data caps and over-cap pricing are likely to receive intense regulatory scrutiny to ensure that operators aren’t gouging customers in an attempt to replace lost voice revenues.

The other big unknown is whether service providers will be allowed to create optional "voice optimized" or "conferencing optimized" service plans for users that want priority handling of their own conferencing and voice bits, or "video optimized" plans for users who deem video apps to be key.

In a sign of things to come, Verizon Wireless and AT&T now allow use of mobile VoIP. Google's Android phones running on Verizon's network have VoIP applications available on them.

AT&T also now allows use of the Skype VoIP application on AT&T’s 3G network and iPhones. Vonage and iBasis, among others, also support mobile VoIP calling.

The VoIP trend actually only accelerates an on-going trend. U.S. mobile service provider monthly voice revenue per subscriber has declined from an average of $58 in 2000 to less than $35 in 2009. VoIP might accelerate that process, but is not singlehandedly causing it.

Data plan revenue is the obvious replacement revenue source. And with more application stores offering mobile VoIP clients, it will be hard to stop users from substituting VoIP for traditional calling. Of course, mobile providers have options.

They might not want to do so, but one way to prevent substantial migration to VoIP calling is simply to lower prices for tradtional calling, especially under conditions where voice is carried on one network, and data on a separate network. Part of the overall equation is the additional load mobile VoIP calling will place on 3G networks. In a sense, providing incentives for users to use the voice network for voice offloads traffis from the 3G networks.

Ease of use will emerge as a key issue as more mobile VoIP clients are made available. For many users, domestic calling is cheap enough that mobile VoIP will not provide much advantage, as compelling as international VoIP will be. Anything other than the normal process people now use to dial calls will create huge barriers to domestic VoIP usage.

Call quality also will be an issue. People are used to mobile voice call quality being less than landline. They are used to VoIP calls being equivalent to mobile call quality. But quality less than mobile will create barriers to usage.

On the other hand, use of high-quality codecs will be an incentive to use of mobile VoIP. Anybody who has used Skype high-definition codecs might have new incentives to use VoIP calling services that offer such experiences. Adoption barriers exist here, as both ends of a circuit must be equipped with high-performance codecs to maximize the experience.

The other unknown is the impact of devices able to support multitasking and integrate data services such as instant messaging and presence functions with voice sessions.

Carriers might want to ationalize data and voice pricing, says Howe. A $30 per month data plan capped at 5 GB a month allows your typical 24 Kbps codec VoIP user to talk for nearly 21,000 minutes. That makes the $60 AT&T charges for 900 voice minutes a month look pretty expensive, says Howe.

Operators should do the math on tariffs they charge and adjust rates so VoIP arbitrage becomes less attractive.

Service providers also should build their own mobile VoIP apps, optimized to work with 3G networks as well as Wi-Fi and 4G networks they also may own. That of course assumes such optimization will remain legal once the Federal Communications Commission finishes its rulemaking on network neutrality.

24% of Landline Users Would Consider Abandoning Landline Service

As many as 24 percent of landline users would consider abandoning those lines in favor of mobile-only service, a survey by In-Stat sugggests. And some think that forecast is too conservative. Citigroup analyst Michael Rollins argues that by 2010, wireless-only households should rise to 27 percent, up from 13 percent last year and an estimated 17 percent this year.

In fact, the cord-cutting trend seen among younger U.S. wireless users might be hidden to a certain extent, as many teenagers may now be quite comfortable with the idea of using a mobile as the voice appliance, and simply haven't yet had a chance to make their preferences known in the broader market.

To be sure, the typical cord cutter is under 35 years old with a small household and a lower income than the traditional phone user, In-Stat says.

“The largest number of current cord cutters—those who do not have a landline, but rely solely on their mobile phone—are those one might expect: young, single, living alone, or sharing quarters such as a dormitory or rooming house,” says Jill Meyers, In-Stat analyst. “In many cases, these are people who are the least-likely candidates to have a landline phone.”

To nobody's surprise, current cord cutters, who have no landline service, use 22 percent more mobile minutes than the average user, and 40 percent more mobile minutes than those not interested in surrendering their landline.

As you also might suspect, potential cord cutters frequently are on family or group mobile rate plans. That is to say, they are teenagers or college-age adults whose bills are paid by other family members. They also are users who simply are accustomed to communicating using a mobile device rather than a "home phone."

Potential cord cutters also are heavy users, since nearly all their calling and texting is concentrated on a personal mobile device. Their spending averages $111.41 a month. Most estimates peg cord cutters at about five to eight percent of users. Analysts at the Yankee Group think the trend will keep growing, and reach 15 percent in several years.

As a parent with three young adults on a such a plan, I can attest that per-capita spending is much higher than for the parents also on shared plans. Way higher, and in line with the In-Stat findings.