How Much Further Can Fixed Network Broadband Grow?

It almost seems impossible that fixed network broadband Internet access could have become a “legacy product” so soon, at least in the U.S. and other developed markets, but that is what has happened.

In the U.S. market, most potential consumers already buy broadband. Leichtman Research Group points out that  the 17 largest cable and telephone providers, representing about 93 percent of the total market, acquired about 580,000 net additional high-speed Internet subscribers in the third quarter of 2012.

Collectively, these service providers now account for over 80.7 million subscribers. Cable companies have 46.2 million broadband subscribers, and telephone companies have 34.5 million subscribers.

The issue is how close the U.S. market is to full saturation. By some estimates, U.S. fixed network broadband penetration is near 80 percent of homes. You might argue that leaves room to grow, and there is, but not much.

The reason is that not every home requires broadband. Not every home owns computers. Not every home has users that want to use at-home Wi-Fi to support tablet and smart phone access, or game consoles or Internet-connected TVs.

Also, some households substitute mobile access for fixed connections. Perhaps six percent of U.S. homes using broadband already seem to rely exclusively on mobile connections.

When asked what device they normally use to access the internet, 25 percent of smart phone owners say that they mostly go online using their phone, rather than with a computer. 




While many of these individuals have other sources of online access at home, roughly one third of these “cell mostly” internet users lack a high-speed home broadband connection, according to Pew Internet & American Life Project. That implies about an eight percent of households that only use mobile broadband. 

Many studies show that income is directly correlated to PC ownership and broadband usage. Households with annual incomes of at least $75,000 buy broadband at at least an 87 percent rate. Homes with annual incomes of $30,000 to $49,999 buy broadband at a rate of about 64 percent.




The top cable companies added about 575,000 subscribers, while the top three telephone companies added about 5,000 subscribers, in large part because AT&T and Verizon actually lost customers.

AT&T and Verizon added 749,000 fiber subscribers (U-verse and FiOS) in the quarter, while having a net loss of 799,000 DSL subscribers.

The slow pace of net additions simply reflects a market that is nearly saturated. We will know when the market is completely saturated when net additions hit zero, or very close to it. .

Global Telecom Business: No "One Size Fits All" Strategy Exists

Once upon a time, all communications service providers pretty much "looked alike" in terms of strategy. That is less true now, and will probably be much less true in the future, as service providers adapt to the realities of many different segments of the communications business.

These days, strategies are diverging. That might especially be true in developed markets, where actual practices have lead to more strategic diversity over the past couple of decades.

Those differences are driven, in large part, by a bifurcation of opportunity in the global telecommunications business, which is predicted by virtually all analysts to be growing, but unevenly.

There are lots of places where phone penetration is 22 percent, for example, or where use of the Internet is about 23 percent, despite the fact that mobile penetration, in terms of “accounts,” now is as high as 79 percent, even in the “developing” countries.

Of course, usage even within a single country or region, and revenue prospects for service providers, are not distributed evenly. Generally speaking, growth opportunities are disproportionately found in the Asia-Pacific region, though Africa and Latin America are growth areas as well.

The obverse is true in much of of the developed world, where classic markets for voice and messaging are saturated, and even mobile broadband, the current growth driver, will face maturation not so long from now. That of course explains the serious and even furious pursuit of new growth drivers by executives in the mobile and fixed network service provider industries.

The European telecom service market decreased for the third year in a row, by 1.5 percent, the European Telecommunications Network Operators Association reports. You might blame a tough economy for the contraction, but ETNO points out that in the most-recent year, in a context of moderate economic recovery (+4.2 percent for current gross domestic product in the region), the lagging performance suggests structural changes, not just cyclical economic impact.

But some observers might argue that economic woes are having an impact.


The decline in fixed telephony revenues is accelerating (-8.3 percent in 2011 and –31 percent over the last five years), driven in part by a negative five percent growth of fixed lines in service. Since 2005, fixed line subscribership is down 22 percent.  The bad news is that mobile revenues, long the driver of industry growth, also are declining (-0.6 percent)

Mobile voice revenues were down 4.7 percent in 2011 (–13.2 percent over the past three years), a decline driven by significant drops in some large countries: Spain (-8.3 percent),
France (-8.2 percent) and Germany (-7.1 percent).

Fixed network broadband revenue is the bright spot, as revenues were up 6.5 percent in 2011.

Mobile services, though, remain the bulk of telcos revenues, accounting for 52 percent of the total market (142.7 billion EUR in 2011).

The report also shows the divergence between European and the United States market, where it comes to revenue growth. Since 2006, U.S. service providers have done better than their European counterparts.

Precisely why that should be the case is not always so clear. One might argue that European markets are more competitive. One might argue European markets are more fragmented. One might argue that calling and texting tariffs have been higher, since there is more international roaming across Europe, compared to the continent-sized U.S. market.

Certainly, regulators have been squeezing revenue by mandating lower charges for cross-border roaming. Those lower tariffs of course will put pressure on gross revenue.

Moreover, Europe's share of the global telecoms market has been declining regularly over the recent years, from 31 percent  in 2005 to just over 25 percent in 2011 as the gap between
global growth (+3.2 percent in 2011) and growth in Europe widens.
So different business strategies will make sense in different markets and parts of markets. Service providers in high-density markets with high per-capita income will be the first to find they must “outgrow” reliance on voice, messaging and even broadband access.

Service providers in low-density, high per-capita income areas will find they can rely on “basic” services for quite some time to come.

Service providers in high-density, low-income areas increasingly will be looking at ways to boost average revenue per user, while providers in low-density, low-income areas generally will be looking at ways to provide basic access services.

In telecom, there is no “one size fits all” strategy.

Does Movie Piracy Actually Increase Movie Revenues?

Does illegal file sharing of movie content actually increase movie box office revenues? One study suggests that might actually be true, though the magnitude of the revenue lift might be tough to determine. 

Researchers say the illegal file-sharing spreads information about content that encourages some users to pay, when they might not otherwise have done so. Content owners won't be impressed, as the self evident fact is that piracy does drive significant revenue loss. 

In fact, piracy affects many industries. In this one example, the revenues in red represent estimated losses because of piracy. 

Why Technology Companies Should Not Pay Taxes

Though it is counter intuitive, consumers actually are better off when corporations do not pay any taxes at all.

They collect taxes on behalf of the taxing authority, but that's it. Taxes are a cost of doing business, like any other, so some other stakeholder winds up paying. The only issue is which stakeholders those are.

A tax requires that the wallet of some human being gets lighter; the study of exactly whose purse it will be is the study of tax incidence.

With respect to the incidence of corporation tax, we have known since 1899 (when Seligman first pointed it out) that the company itself does not ultimately carry that burden. In theory it's some mixture of the customers (who end up with higher prices), the workers (who get lower wages) or the shareholders (who see lower returns).

But there is an argument to be made that it is the workers and the shareholders who, in the end, take the hit.

So to the extent that a person actually cares about economic growth, this matters. To be sure, some people do not apparently actually care about growth, but economic growth is what allows people to earn a living, and supports all government spending. So economic growth really does matter. 

A some level, taxes are necessary. But some taxes are harmful because they depress the growth that supports all jobs. Corporate taxation is one of those harmful taxes. 

Usage-Based Pricing Actually is Better for End Users

The most economically consumer friendly retail payment model for end users might actually be "usage based" billing, even though people rather instinctively prefer "unlimited" or flat fee models. 

And many consumer advocates think usage based billing inherently is unfair to end users.

To be sure, there are advantages to flat rate pricing. Flat fee means users know what to expect, which helps with budgeting. 

And flat rates mean no danger of bill shock, as could happen, and does happen, when users are roaming, or using streaming video.

But flat rates are not the same as "unlimited usage" plans. These days, pricing is moving to "banded" ranges, or "buckets of usage" that have usage and pricing roughly correlated within some ranges. 

So some modified way of rating usage, using "buckets" rather than actual per-byte usage, arguably is better for buyers than unlimited flat rate pricing.

There are issues, even from a service provider perspective. There always is a tension between operational simplicity and sophistication in retail customer packaging and network management. Simple approaches often are cheaper, but at the cost of forfeiting creation of more-nuanced subscriber plans.

Likewise, policy management tools that can prioritize and shape bandwidth consumption can help service providers alleviate congestion and provide higher end user experience, where regulators allow such tools to be used. But there appear to be lots of trade offs.

Most executives would agree that flat-rate billing for unlimited use is a difficult and likely unsustainable retail packaging model for broadband access, especially in the mobile services realm. But what should be the replacement? That seems to be a tougher question.

As a corollary, executives must weigh “pricing by value,” or “pricing by application,” which means more complexity for consumers, or some simpler “pricing by consumption” approach.

Likewise, methods for managing mobile networks to avoid peak-hour congestion arguably can be viewed with circumspection. And the issue there similarly seems to be a mix of concerns about imposing more overhead on operations, irritating customers and adding complexity to the marketing and billing process.

Mobile service provider executives say they prefer to charge subscribers for data based on tiered usage plans, rather than by application, an on-line survey of some 300 mobile service provider respondents suggests, according to Connected Business Research.

For example, a large number of operators were considering changes to billing plans in 2012, but a substantial number of executives also are concerned that market perception and competitive considerations might prevent them from adopting their preferred billing schemes.

Retail billing preferences have to be balanced against market realities, in other words.

Mobile Payments Surge on "Black Friday"

A huge surge in mobile payments seems to have occurred on the U.S. "Black Friday," the day after the Thanksgiving holiday that historically marks the start of the Christmas and holiday shopping season. 

Somehow, it doesn't seem surprising. IBM analysts estimate that mobile shopping activity rose about 21 percent on Black Friday, year over year. But mobile purchases also surged on Thanksgiving day itself. 

At some point, reporters and analysts will stop noting such occurrences, and that's when we'll know mobile commerce (shopping and payments) simply has become another form of "e-commerce," like online shopping, which largely and justifiably is considered unremarkable these days. 

But some would say there is little correlation between the size of sales on Black Friday and overall sales during the crucial Christmas and holiday shopping season. So there's even more reason not to get worked up over the size of Black Friday sales. It is not actually a very consistent predictor of ultimate seasonal sales volume, as it turns out. 

Can Microsoft Become an Ad-Supported Technology Company?

Traditionally, Google has been the primary and leading example of a technology company supported by advertising. But others are at least thinking about what could be possible. Ad-supported tablets might be one example. 

Perhaps more common is ad-supported software ad-supported software, with most people thinking of mobile apps, perhaps, though there also are examples of business software supported by advertising. 


Microsoft has been looking at ad-supported software since at least 2005. And some say Windows 8 will mark an expansion of that effort, integrating advertising into the operating system itself. 

Some think that could lead at some point in the future to ad-supported versions of the operating system, possibly a freemium model, for example.

Up to this point, software has been the type of product most readily adapted to advertising support, one might argue. 

In addition to Google, Facebook, Pandora, Yahoo and AOL have had predominant ad revenue models.

For Microsoft, the "Office" suite has driven about 30 percent of revenue. 

How Many Broadband Access Market Positions are Possible?

Most large and mature markets develop segments. And one wonders when and if this could happen in the communications business, which historically has organized around "enterprise" and "mass markets," a rather undifferentiated approach, compared to automobiles, for example.

The opportunity for much more significant differentiation would seem to be enhanced by "big data" driven segmentation, by the proliferation of devices, applications, usage modes and even network suppliers. Specialized machine to machine networks could provide one example.

Large mature markets are susceptible to disruption, in part because their large size means an attacker could hope to create a meaningful business by taking some market share. 

And it always is possible, in a big market, to offer a product that offers the "same features, at a lower price." That possibly raises the question of whether discrete segments could be created in the broadband access business, beyond the speed tiers or mobile or fixed distinctions that already exist.

At least at first, though, disruptive attacks emphasize "lower price." Less common are "free" services. And though it long has seemed impossible to offer high speed Internet access for free, those barriers are permeable. 

Free public Wi-Fi now has spread from hotels to coffee shops to bookstores, restaurants, airports and some parks.

Those are "spot" deployments that do not necessarily challenge the 'home access' or "business access" markets. But at least some wireless ISPs merchandise some connections "for free." A provider might give one tenant free access in return for using a site as a network access point to feed service to other paying customers.

The issue is how many more scenarios might be possible in the future, as additional spectrum and additional potential competitors emerge. We already see potential new national providers such as Dish Network, Globalstar and Lightsquared attempting to monetize new swaths of spectrum. 

White spaces spectrum is expected to be commercialized in the United States and United Kingdom in the coming couple of years. The Federal Communications Commission is looking at spectrum sharing between commercial and government users. 

And additional spectrum from reclaimed analog broadcasters also is expected to be auctioned, at some point. Of course, increased supply should lead to lower costs. 

Beyond physical levels of supply, there is the matter of revenue models. And ad-supported or commerce models might be among the biggest potential avenues of attack.

In fact, the most dangerous new potential competitors would seem to be firms that have huge installed customer bases, alternate revenue models, recognizable brand names and plenty of cash. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and possibly Facebook come to mind.

Google and Microsoft are rumored to be actively exploring how to use white spaces spectrum in the United Kingdom market, reportedly to offer free Internet access.

The angles are simple enough. Google might provide free Wi-Fi style access for all devices running Android, while Microsoft might try and do the same for users of its devices. That would create product differentiation for Microsoft or Android devices, while enticing users to use apps more, which will increase potential ad views.


New competitors might also try and attack the operating cost side of the business model. More providers might try to compete with a “data only” and e-commerce approach that minimizes overhead and operating costs to dramatically lower the retail pricing for mobile broadband.

In addition to the "free" approach, some providers will use those advantages to occupy a "lower cost" segment of the market, especially when relying on a "data only" model.

Other models exist as well. Firms such as Google can dramatically change end user expectations about the nature of access products, using a “high value for reasonable cost” approach that upends end user expectations about "typical" product attributes.

When Google sells symmetrical 1-Gbps for about $70 a month, that creates new expectations on the part of consumers about what the “normal” value-price relationship is for fixed high speed access.


Google hopes to force competitors to react, as widespread, ubiquitous, reasonably priced broadband is an underpinning for its advertising revenue model. 

European Mobile Operators Embracing “Over the Top” Faster than North American Ops

Necessity might be the mother of invention where it comes to adoption of carrier-owned over the top applications. Orange (France Telecom) has created and now is supporting “Libon,” an over the top calling and messaging app that operates in a “no incremental charge” “peer to peer” manner when used by people who have downloaded the app.

In joining Telefonica and T-Mobile in sponsoring a branded over the top voice and messaging app, France Telecom has concluded that “joining” the OTT voice app trend is wiser than fighting it. 

That still is not the choice in North America, where firms such as AT&T and Verizon seem to have concluded they are better off not doing so, at least for the moment.

Libon allows users to make free calls and texts to other Libon users around the world, using a “freemium” model, and joining Skype, Viber and WhatsApp, TU Me and Bobsled in embracing an over the top business model for voice and messaging.

The iPhone version is “live” in the Apple iPhone App Store now, with an Android version will  be released early in 2013.

The free version of Libon includes free calls, instant messages and voicemail services, with a premium version costing £1.99 a month through a subscription on iTunes. That includes one hour of international calls to landlines or mobiles in 31 countries, unlimited greetings for voicemails, transcript of voicemails and recordings of voicemails included in notification emails.


For mobile service providers, the fundamental problems with over the top voice and messaging services have to do with the business model, for obvious reasons. Ovum says increased use of social messaging applications had cost mobile operators $13.9 billion (£8.8bn) in lost text messaging revenues in 2011 alone, for example.

But incremental “gains” from OTT voice and messaging, for service providers, might be quite modest. In 2012, global mobile VoIP service revenues might be about $2.5 billion. But mobile voice revenue overall could be in the range of roughly $1 trillion.

In other words, even if they succeed, carrier over the top voice and messaging will not produce all that much revenue.

In fact, mobile VoIP is still worth less than 0.5 percent of overall mobile voice revenues, according to ARCchart.

At some level, the determination is simply that Orange needs to remain relevant as a supplier of communications services, whatever the danger of cannibalizing at least some of its own voice and messaging revenue. T-Mobile and Telefonica taken a similar approach.

U.S. FCC Examining Resiliency of U.S. Mobile Networks

The Federal Communications Commission will convene a series of field hearings in 2013 to examine challenges to the nation’s communications networks in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, and make recommendations to improve network resiliency. 

Issues to be examined include backup power, ways to increase levels of sharing between networks and resources during emergencies, and other ways to increase overall resiliency during emergenices. 

By some estimates, 25 percent of mobile cell sites were knocked out in areas affected by Superstorm Sandy.  Others mobile network resiliency, though. 

White Spaces in U.K. Will Have to Operate as a Managed Network

White spaces networks using former broadcast TV spectrum in the United States and United Kingdom are intended to be used on a non-licensed basis, with a new twist. 

Today's unlicensed spectrum allows devices to register and use the network, but without any admission control, as a private network would do, or frequency coordination, as a mobile network must do. With the Wi-Fi router model, the user can configure some elements of the access. In the U.K. white spaces case, the network will do all of the configuration. 

So in the United Kingdom, it appears mild forms of admission control and frequency coordination will be used, essentially turning the white spaces spectrum into what is effectively a managed network of sorts. A white spaces network therefore will more nearly resemble a cellular network than a local Wi-Fi network. 

U.K. devices operating in white spaces will have to consult with an online database for usable frequencies, and check back regularly to ensure nothing has changed. That makes a white spaces operation more a managed "network" than has been the case in the past for "networks" using unlicensed spectrum. 

The reason is that white spaces networks will have to sense which frequencies are usable in any given location. In some cases, those frequencies could change over time. What isn't so clear yet is whether a data base entity will be able to monitor which frequencies are currently in use by other devices and then adjust device transmission power automatically, a step that would further prevent interference and optimize total network performance. 

Devices which cannot contact a data base administrator immediately on seeking admission to the network can use their "remembered frequencies" list, but have to check back every hour, Ofcom says. 

Device manufacturers will have to pay entities running the data bases, as well. The point is that white spaces networks in the United Kingdom will use non-licensed spectrum, but will operate in ways that are more like a managed network, in a few ways, than a traditional non-licensed Wi-Fi network. 

The networks apparently will operate as "best effort" entities, but the network itself will take some steps, or might be able to take some steps, to manage radio resources in ways that provide better user experience. 

European Parliament Says:Stop the ITU taking over the Internet"

Control of the Internet must be stopped from falling into the hands of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the European Parliament has warned.

The resolution calls on the E.U. member states to prevent any changes to the International Telecommunication Regulations that would be harmful to the openness of the Internet, net neutrality and freedom of expression.

European Mobile Industry is Contracting

Globally, telecom revenue is growing. But not in Western Europe, it appears. The mobile industry’s combined revenues from voice, messaging and data services in the EU5 economies (United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Italy) will drop by nearly 20 billion Euros, or four percent a year, in the next five years, and by 30 billion Euros by 2020, according to STL Partners. 

The obvious implication is that mobile service providers in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Italy will have to create new revenue streams worth 30 billion Euros, just to stay where they are, by 2020. 

That is roughly in line with a rule of thumb I use that suggests service providers in just about every developed market will need to replace about 50 percent of current revenue in 10 years. 

Mobile Operator VoIP Revenues Remain Paltry

For mobile service providers, the fundamental problems with over the top voice and messaging services have to do with the business model, for obvious reasons. 

Since mobile service providers do not own the over the top apps, they do not participate in the revenue. But if they try and offer their own OTT apps, priced competitively with the over the top providers, they make little money, and potentially disrupt their own more-lucrative voice and messaging services. 

In fact, mobile VoIP is still worth less than 0.5 percent of overall mobile voice revenues, according to ARCchart.

ARCchart sees similar issues for mobile service provider messaging. ARCchart expects that instant messages will exceed text messaging volumes by 2014 and continue growing rapidly, accounting for 65 percent of all message traffic pushed over mobile networks by 2016. 

As with voice, OTT messaging will cannibalize mobile operator services. In 2012, global mobile VoIP service revenues might be about $2.5 billion. But mobile voice revenue overall could be in the range of roughly $1 trillion. 

Mobile Roaming Revenues to exceed $80 Billion by 2017

Mobile roaming, with growth powered especially by use of data services out of region, will grow to more than $80 billion by 2017, compared to $46 billion in 2012. 

Mobile data will provide most of the growth, if not the absolute greatest volume of revenue, generating about $35 billion in revenue by 2017, when data roaming revenues will represent about eight percent of total mobile service provider revenues, says Juniper Research. 

Still, that means voice roaming will account for $45 billion in 2017. Western Europe will continue to be the region where roaming revenue is the most significant revenue contributor. 

Lower roaming fees, often mandated by regulators, actually will help. As any economist might say, lowering the price of any product tends to increase consumption of those products.