Thai Telcos Face Higher Costs, Less Revenue

The Thai telecommunications market, which arguably has been unstable over the past decade, looks to get another remake.

A possible merger of state-owned Telecom of Thailand (TOT) and CAT Telecom, a talked-about option since at least 2006, might actually happen, if the Thai government gets its way.

The Thai government proposes to create a new wholesale company providing wide area optical transport services, and also owning the existing mobile tower networks.

Revenue issues for the two state-owned firms arguably have been made tougher by the decision to create a national backbone and tower services firm.

That should negatively affect TOT and CAT, which today are the suppliers of all wholesale communications facilities in Thailand. In effect, the new national backbone network will remove revenue-generating assets. In some cases, where TOT or CAT need those assets to support their own businesses, new costs are added, at the same time.

The current system, where “concessions” rather than “licenses” are the patten, means that 30 percent of retail service provider revenue is owed to the state. Now CAT and TOT might find themselves payers rather than payees for some services.

The potential merger of TOT and CAT, along with the new national backbone network, occur against a  backdrop of an arguably inconsistent and unstable regulatory framework in Thailand.

For mobile services market leader AIS, that means a concession fee for each prepaid customer of 25 percent, and a fee for each postpaid customer of 30 percent.

Most users of voice communications in Thailand have for some time relied on mobile rather than fixed network service provided by private operators, though CAT’s mobile service, majority owned by Hutchison Whampoa, is among the larger firms in the Thai market.

The new backbone network presumably means some of the concession fee will flow to the national backbone company, not CAT or TOT.

That, of course, will have negative repercussions for cost structure at TOT and CAT.

Already, the Thai government appears to have asked both CAT and TOT to rapidly reduce costs by 10 percent. That, combined with a loss of some revenue to the new national backbone network, is one reason a merger between the two firms might be necessary.

Common Carrier Regulation of Fixed High Speed Access Would Raise Taxes $90 a Year

Title II common carrier regulation of consumer Internet access--whatever else happens to pricing and investment in next generation networks--also will raise taxes for U.S. consumers.

The Progressive Policy Institute calculated that the average annual increase in state and local fees levied on U.S. fixed network users will be $67 each year, while mobile broadband taxes would grow $72 per line, per year.

The annual increase in federal fees per household will be roughly $17. That implies a potential higher cost of about $84 to $89 a year.

“When you add it all up, reclassification could add a whopping $15 billion in new user fees on top of the planned $1.5 billion extra to fund the E-Rate program,” the Progressive Policy Institute notes.

The higher fees would come on top of the adverse impact on consumers of less investment and slower innovation that would result from reclassification.

Those charges would occur because once Internet service providers are labeled “telecommunications providers” under Title II, their services become subject to both federal and state fees that apply to those services. The two main federal charges are an excise tax and a fee for “universal service.”

The bottom line is that annual residential fixed network high speed access costs would likely go up by $8 in Delaware to almost $148 in certain parts of Alaska, on an annual basis.  

The average fee for fixed network high speed access users would range from $51 to $83 per year.

Mobile phone bills would likely increase by at least that amount, as well.

The additional spending per household for fixed high speed access alone, attributable to the federal universal service program would amount to $2.014 billion (equal to $1.38 per month increase x 12 months x 121.7 million households).

U.S. Linear TV Viewing Drops 4.4% in a Year

Digital video viewing is up by double digits across key adult demographics, while viewing via a traditional TV screen is dropping, according to Nielsen’s new “Total Audience Report.”

The average U.S. adult spent four hours and 32 minutes watching live TV in the third quarter of 2014, down 4.4 percent from four hours and 44 minutes in 2013.

The amount of time spent on time-shifted viewing using a digital video recorder rose to 30 minutes, from 28 minutes in the third quarter of  2013.

Time spent using the Internet on a computer climbed to one hour and 6 minutes, up from one hour, the report noted.

Time spent watching video using a smartphone spiked to one hour and 33 minutes, from one hour and 10 minutes a year ago.

Digital-video usage overall rose 60 percent year over year, from six hours and 41 minutes in the third quarter of  2013 to 10 hours and 42 minutes in the third quarter of 2014.

Time spent watching Internet video was up 53 percent among adults 18 to 49 quarter over quarter, Nielsen reported.

Linear TV viewing for viewers 18 to 49 dropped three percent.

Among adults 25 to 54, viewership of digital content grew 62 percent,  while linear TV declined two percent.

Among adults 55 and older, digital viewing rose 55 percent while linear viewing was flat year-over-year.

Declining Demand a Problem for Growing Range of Telecom Products

The biggest problem arguably faced by the linear video subscription business is declining demand for the product, a trend that already has affected fixed network voice and mobile network text messaging.

New data from Bernstein Research shows TV audiences have continued to decline. And though one should not give too much credence to any one-week change, aggregate cable television audiences dropped eight percent Nov. 17 through 23 of 2014, while broadcast TV viewing dropped nine percent, according to Bernstein Research.

Aggregate audiences are also down over the third quarter of 2014, a possibly more-significant trend. Both cable TV and broadcast TV viewing dropped nine percent.

Children's programming fared even worse, with audiences falling 12 percent in a week, and 15 percent during the quarter, according to Bernstein.

The slipping viewership among young audiences may be because children's programming is particularly vulnerable to competition from streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, some argue.   

Nickelodeon viewership fell 25 percent and Disney Channel viewership fell 24 percent.

Thailand Proposes New Wholesale-Based Telecom Framework

source: ASEANBriefing

The Thai government now hopes to create a different wholesale infrastructure entity to support fixed and mobile telecommunications services in Thailand.

To be sure, wholesale infrastructure already is wholly-owned by the government.

Two firms--TOT and CAT--own facilities and issue concessions to private operators to use the assets.

In that framework, all retail providers compete without benefit or detriment of network asset ownership. 

Some might argue the new national network will allow faster investment in new facilities in some areas by increasing the expected financial return from investing in new assets.

But the change might be unsettling for TOT and CAT, the two Thai state-owned firms that formerly owned infrastructure. So far, it appears the new wholesale entity will control the wide area optical backbone and tower networks.

That might mean the existing fixed local access network might remain the province of TOT. Likewise, it is not yet clear whether CAT's gateway and international traffic functions will remain with CAT.

Much depends on which assets are transferred to the new wholesale entity, and how the terms, conditions and price of wholesale access are set. In what might be termed a "worse case" scenario, CAT and TOT both largely become retail operators rather than wholesale providers.

And, if so, how well might they handle the challenge? To the extent that new primarily retail function develops. do the firms possess the right mix of human and other assets to compete effectively as "virtual operators?"

The proposed “national backbone holding company” could inherit the 150,000 kilometers of optical fiber owned by state-owned operators TOT and CAT.

The new wholesale company might also incorporate about 50,000 km of optical fiber owned by private players and the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand.

The holding company would have separate telecom tower and fiber optic network operations, and would presumably result in all retail providers in Thailand renting transport and access from the wholesale company.

Internet access in Thailand is about 29 percent, and an estimated 30,000 villages have no access to the Internet at all.

Sprint Gambles on Price Attack

T-Mobile US has proven one thing: an aggressive price attack can grow market share, add subscribers, gross revenue and cash flow. What has not yet happened is a longer term shift to actual operating profits.

Sprint seems to be gearing up for a similar strategy test, attempting to wrest price leadership away from T-Mobile US as it gambles on a pricing attack. Whether the strategy "works" in the short term is the issue, to say nothing of the longer-term merits.

Sprint reported a quarterly loss in the third quarter of 2014 of $765 million, compared to net income of $23 million in the second quarter of 2014 and net income of $383 million in the third quarter of 2013.

Now the issue what happens as Sprint has launched an aggressive price attack, offering new customers a permanent discount of half the monthly rates they now pay to Verizon Wireless or AT&T Mobility customers who switch to Sprint beginning Dec. 5, 2014.

The “Cut Your Bill in Half” offer provides unlimited talk and text to anywhere in the United States while customers are on the Sprint network, and the same mobile data allowance new customers now have at AT&T or Verizon, while permanently charging 50 percent of what new customers now are paying to AT&T or Verizon for mobile data service.

At this point, it seems impossible to figure out whether Sprint’s operating cash flow get worse, stabilizes or even improves, in the near term as a result of the new promotion, and other actions Sprint is taking, or might take.

Sprint obviously is banking on something similar to T-Mobile US experience after it launched its price attack. After bleeding customers for years, T-Mobile US began growing fast after it began its “Uncarrier” price war.

In its own third quarter 2014 earnings report, T-Mobile US reported a net gain of 1.2 million branded postpaid phone accounts, and mobile broadband net additions of 200,000. T-Mobile US also added wholesale and prepaid customers, for a total 2.3 million net adds for the quarter.

So gross revenue grew.  Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA, or cash flow), declined to $1.35 billion, down 7.2 percent sequentially and flat, year over year. And there lies the potential problem for both T-Mobile US  and Sprint: revenue, cash flow and subscriber gains at the expense of profit.

If Sprint can, over the next quarter, start to replicate that performance, it is conceivable revenue and cash flow grows, although profit margins could worsen, and Sprint could lose money.

Some might call that a race to the bottom. We will find out soon enough whether Sprint can emulate T-Mobile US and start adding customers, instead of losing them. The longer term issue--whether either firm can eventually shift to profitability--remains the bigger issue.

Customer Retention Drives Mobile Operator Interest in Carrier Wi-Fi

Customer retention likely is more important than traffic offload as a motivation for deploying carrier-owned Wi-Fi hotspots, a survey sponsored by the  Wireless Broadband Alliance, and conducted by Maravedis-Rethink has found.

Fully 70 percent of respondents said a key motivation for deploying carrier Wi-Fi was to improve customer experience, seen in turn as a way to increase subscriber retention.

Some 41 percent of respondents said improved customer experience was the single most important driver to invest in next generation hotspots, ahead of the value of offload.

In both 2013 and 2014, large venues such as stadiums and shopping malls were among the biggest drivers of traffic growth said over 50 percent of respondents, followed by travel hubs such as airports (cited by 48 percent) and connectivity on board transportation (41 percent).

The survey also found that Wi-Fi roaming will continue to be an important way to extend coverage, especially internationally.

In the 2013 survey, 30 percent of the hotspot operators also had roaming deals to supplement their networks, while in 2014, that percentage has risen to just over 50 percent.

Among those surveyed, there was a total base of over 2.8 million directly owned and managed hotspots, and an average of 42,000 locations. When roaming was included, the carriers could provide a total of 8.85 million locations between them, or an average of 193,000 each.

With regards to “next generation hotspot” (the WBA program for seamless authentication between Wi-Fi and carrier networks) deployments, about 44 percent of respondents expected to have deployed at least parts of the platform by the end of 2015.

By the end of 2016, another 31 percent of those with active plans for NGH expect to have NGH deployed.

Some 35 percent of respondents are charging for roaming access, or providing tools and platforms to enable such roaming.

The study included 210 respondents, or which 45 percent were mobile service providers.

The majority of the responses came from North America (39 percent) and Europe (26 percent), followed by Asia-Pacific (19 percent).

U.S. Consumer Spending on Mobility Up 49%, High Speed Access Up 80% Since 2007

Spending on mobile phone service has grown 49 percent since 2007, an analysis by the Wall Street Journal of U.S. Labor Department data shows.

The analysis of 2013 out-of-pocket spending for the middle 60 percent of the population by income (households earning between about $18,000 and $95,000 a year, before taxes) also shows that spending on high speed access has grown by more than 80 percent since 2007.

In 2013, high speed access spending by the studied households made up about 0.8 percent of spending for middle income households, up from 0.4 percent in 2007. It is worth noting that the cost of high speed access in the United States represents less than one percent of income.

In other countries in the Americas, mobile service costs between five percent and 15 percent of income. Of course, much depends on what sorts of plans are compared, as prepaid accounts and postpaid accounts are not comparable, within or between nations, in terms of price or performance.

Prices per person in developed regions might represent half a percent to two percent of income, depending on the type of plan analyzed.  

Globally, mobile service costs can be as high as 15 percent per person in developing regions, while a bit less than five percent per person in developed regions.  

Over that same period, spending on fixed network phone service declined 31 percent.

Spending on cable and satellite television is up 24 percent from 2007, the study also found.

South, Southeast Asia Mobile Profits Challenged in 2015

South and Southeast Asia might be among the world's fastest-growing mobile markets, but profit and free cash flow pressures will be significant in 2015.

Fitch Ratings expects most South Asia and Southeast Asia telecommunications operators will face a generally challenging environment in 2015, although its sector outlooks will remain broadly stable.

Minimal or negative free cash flow will result from high capital investment in mobile networks (3G and 4G),  while profit margins will decline because of  competition, Fitch Ratings said.

“Revenue growth will be limited to low-to-mid single digit percentages as fast-growing data services offset declines in traditional voice and SMS revenues,” Fitch Ratings said.

Philippine, Sri-Lankan and Thai telcos might invest 25 percent to 30 percent of their revenue either to expand networks or acquire new spectrum.

Singaporean telco free cash flow also will be low despite reduced capex at 10 percent  to 11 percent of revenue, down from the 2014 level of 13 percent of revenue. Also, Singapore firms  will continue to distribute 80 percent to 100 percent of their net income in dividends.

India, Indonesia, Sri-Lanka, and Philippines mobile operator 2015 revenue was likely to grow by mid-single-digits due to growing data usage arising from the greater availability of cheaper smartphones and more-affordable data tariffs, Fitch Ratings said.

Singapore mobile service provider revenue will grow by low single digits because of continuing cannibalization of voice, text messaging and international revenues. Higher data revenues will offset most of the losses.

Malaysian and Thai service provider revenue is likely to grow by low single digits due to intense competition,” Fitch Ratings said.

Fitch also said Philippines, Malaysian and Indonesian telcos' 2015 profit margins would decline due to competition, higher marketing expenses and data-to-voice/text substitution.

Philippine telcos, it said, were most exposed to margin declines as their most profitable text messaging revenue is replaced by data services. Text messaging revenue contribution for Philippines operators is as much as 30 percent of total revenue.

Indian mobile service provider profit margins are likely to remain stable, as voice prices gradually rise.

Privately-owned Thai service provider profitability could improve by three percentage points in 2015.

Weaker telcos in India, Indonesia and Sri-Lanka may consolidate or exit the industry.

Sprint Customer Satisfaction Plumments in One Year

Sprint is the lowest-rated mobile service provider in Consumer Reports’ latest mobile service ratings, based on a survey of 58,399 subscribers by the Consumer Reports National Research Center.

While Sprint trailed only Verizon in overall customer satisfaction among the major carriers in 2013 ratings, Sprint received “dismal marks” in 2014, in terms of  value, voice, text and 4G reliability, Consumer Reports says.

Verizon Wireless was “once again” the highest-ranked major mobile service provider, receiving high marks for data service and some aspects of customer support.

AT&T and T-Mobile got mostly neutral rankings, though AT&T was the sole carrier to receive the top rating for the reliability of its 4G service.

As in previous surveys, no-contract and prepaid service from smaller companies such as Consumer Cellular and TracFone rated better than the major standard providers for customer satisfaction.

“Our latest cell service satisfaction survey revealed a somewhat precipitous decline by Sprint that shuffled the rankings of the major standard service providers,” said Glenn Derene, Electronics Content Development Team Leader for Consumer Reports. “And smaller, no-frills, no-contract and prepaid service providers continue to do a better job of satisfying customers, and provide an increasingly viable alternative to some of the expensive, long-term contracts that many consumers find themselves locked into.”

Will Western Europe Telecom Revenue Slide Reverse in 2015?

An improving regulatory environment and growing demand for high speed data should ease the pressure on Western European telecoms and cable companies in 2015, Fitch Ratings  says.

That said, revenue pressure is likely to remain in place, as many analysts believe revenue will continue to shrink through 2018. Some estimates suggest the rate of decline is accelerating, in fact, though perhaps a consensus forecast is for slow declines  in the one percent to perhaps two percent range.  

Still, Fitch Ratings believes reduced competitive pressures, the result of a shift in the European Commission's approach to telecom regulation, will help.

Policy increasingly is focused on encouraging revenue growth, part of an effort to entice service providers to increase investment in next generation networks.

Fitch Ratings believes the new policies could contribute to a gradual improvement in profit margins and cash flows in 2015. Whether that will happen or not is the issue. Through 2014, revenue trends have shown a slower rate of decline, but not yet positive growth.

Why Eliminating Mobile Coverage "Not Spots" Might Backfire

Infrastructure investment incentives are a tricky business. Policymakers must balance social objectives such as universal service and quality of service with incentives for service providers, and that sometimes is not easy. Consider the issue of coverage.

In nearly all cases, there are some places within any country where mobile service is not available (complete not-spots), or available only from some of the providers (partial not-spots).

Partial not-spots affect three percent of U.K. premises and 21 percent of land mass, as well as significant coverage gaps on major roads (10 percent to 16 percent).

A partial “not-spot” is any area where mobile phone service is provided by one or two of the four leading U.K. mobile operators. The U.K. government estimates that as much as 21 percent of the U.K. land mass is affected by partial not-spots.

Such coverage issues affect a greater proportion of the country than complete not-spots, where no mobile service is available from any carrier. The problems arguably are more difficult the bigger the country.

Providing 4G Long Term Evolution coverage to an extra 17 percent of the population would require nearly tripling the land mass covered by the network, AT&T has estimated.

An original AT&T plan reached 80 percent of the United States potential user base by covering just 20 percent of the country's land mass.

Providing LTE to 97 percent of Americans would require covering 55 percent of the U.S. land mass, for example.

The point is that inability to earn a market rate financial return is a good reason for not making an investment. And mobile operators argue that is precisely the problem with a proposed national roaming plan that would mandate network access by any mobile customer in any area where mobile not-spots  exist, no matter which firm operates the infrastructure in such areas.

An EE-funded study by Capital Economics estimates that national roaming as proposed by the U.K. government could lead to a reduction in industry capital expenditure of £360 to £440 million each year, delay the rollout of 4G by 18 months to 24 months, and reduce GDP by 0.1 to 0.2 per cent.

The report finds that national roaming would only increase coverage by two percent to four percent of the U.K. geography. Furthermore, any benefit would be wiped out by “signal locking” that would negatively impact a much larger number of people than would benefit from coverage.

Signal locking occurs when mobile devices unnecessarily connect to another network for voice and cannot access data services.

Contrary to the government’s intentions, thinly-covered rural areas could see significant reductions in investment, since mobile operators now compete, in part, on coverage.

That provides an incentive for mobile operators to build new towers in rural areas, sometimes even when the incremental revenue earned from such installations is not necessarily commensurate with investment. The value comes from the ability to provide service at all, in rural areas. That is why mobile operators tout their degree of coverage.

The proposed national roaming plan actually eliminates the ability to differentiate on coverage, since all mobile services could claim the same degree of coverage.

That illustrates the policy challenge. Universal access goals conflict with investment goals. Ironically, mobile operators argue, widespread mandatory roaming actually reduces incentives for any specific mobile operator to make additional investments in not-spot areas, as no marketing advantage results.

UK Telecom Market On Verge of Major Consolidation

After BT began moving towards an acquisition of either Telefonica SA’s O2 or EE, the wireless carrier co-owned by Orange SA and Deutsche Telekom AG, a Vodafone reaction was virtually certain.

Vodafone arguably cannot allow BT to amass that much revenue scale and bundling capability without the ability to match future BT offers and market share, as the U.K. telecommunications market would lurch towards a two-tier structure with BT possibly able to climb up to the top of the market share standings on the basis of new product bundles, while the other providers are left to compete with product offers less broad.

The example is the U.S. market, where most consumers buy a bundle of services including high speed access, voice and video entertainment, while some also add mobile service quadruple plays. The standard market offer, in that case, becomes the bundle itself, and less the discrete product components.

Bundling also deters customer churn, a key value in zero-sum markets where one service provider gains an account mostly at the expense of another provider.

The other important driver is a change from scale to scope in the consumer services business. In the past, networks tended to support a single lead app: broadcast TV, broadcast radio, voice, multi-channel TV, paging or mobile voice. These days, Internet protocol means any network potentially can deliver any media type.

But there are several other very good reasons service providers sell bundles of services. Very simply, in a competitive market no single service drives enough revenue to justify building and operating the network.

In a competitive market, where any single service sold by any single provider might only reach share of about 20 percent to 30 percent, an expensive access network can be justified, and remain financially viable, only when the network owner can sell multiple services.

In other words, selling a single customer three or four services at $30 a month, with household share between 25 percent to 33 percent, produces about the same amount of revenue as selling a single service to 95 percent of households.

There are other reasons for bundling. Service providers have found that bundling reduces customer churn. In some cases, a triple play or quadruple play customer exhibits churn as much as 2.6 times lower than single service customers.

Still, beyond any grand strategic considerations, such as gaining a facilities-based platform for competition in new markets, in-market consolidation is driven by a simple and growing problem.

It is becoming increasingly difficult for any service provider to make reasonable profits in its classic lines of business, virtually all of which face competition from new suppliers and new product substitutes. 

So integrating fixed and mobile services is less about synergies between the services and networks--though some synergies undeniably exist--and more about the sheer need to replace lost revenues with new replacement sources.

EC Wants to Raise $393 Billion Investment Fund for Instructure, Including High Speed Access

How much leverage can the European Commission gain from a €21 billion loan fund for infrastructure projects? The answer to that question is the key to a new proposal by EC President Jean-Claudaine Juncker to spark total investment of about €315 billion ($393 billion) in an effort to ignite economic growth.

At its heart is a new €21 billion fund that would give the European Investment Bank the ability to loan a multiple of that amount.

The new European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) would be a partnership with the European Investment Bank, receiving € 16 billion from the EU budget, combined with € 5 billion committed by the EIB.

Key to the claim of an eventual lending capability of $393 billion is a multiplier effect of 15 on the initial funding. In other words, the availability of the “seed funds” backed by the EC would encourage other private lenders to contribute up to €252 billion in private loans.

The effort will strike some as reminiscent of the search for “shovel ready” projects touted by the U.S. White House when it launched its “stimulus” program in 2009.

The problem was that the $830 billion stimulus plan simply did not find such “shovel ready” infrastructure projects able to begin actual construction immediately.  The new EC plan likewise expects to generate all the new investment within three years.

The Fund will finance strategic projects across the EU in infrastructure such as broadband, energy and transport; education, research and innovation; renewable energy and energy efficiency.

To be sure, pumping that much money into an economy will have some effect. How much is the issue.

A 2014 study by the U.S. Congressional Budget Office found the “American Recovery Act”  raised real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product by between 0.1 percent and 0.4 percent.

The ARA lowered the unemployment rate by an amount between a small fraction of a percentage point and 0.3 percentage points.

The stimulus plan  increased the number of people employed by between 0.1 million and 0.5 million and increased the number of full-time-equivalent jobs by 0.1 million to 0.5 million.

According to European Commission estimates, the  investment plan has the potential to

add € 330 to € 410 billion to the EU's GDP and create one to 1.3 million new jobs in the coming

three years.

U.S. experience suggests those goals will not be met.

Hard to Say Whether LTE Boosts Revenue for Mobile Operators

Long Term Evolution, in some cases, is boosting mobile service provider revenues in a direct way, as was hoped. In many other cases, LTE provides indirect revenue value, even when 4G prices are not formally higher than 3G data access prices.

Bharti Airtel, for example, now has started offering an LTE data plan which is even cheaper than the equivalent 3G plan.

But South Korean operators are generating significantly increased revenue from their 4G customers. EE, in the United Kingdom, likewise seems to be generating incremental recurring revenue from 4G services.

In France, Free Mobile introduced a 4G offering at no additional charge to its existing 3G service, forcing rivals to lower their 4G tariffs.

3UK is allowing customers to migrate to 4G without switching from their 3G contracts and will continue to offer unlimited data allowances. Telefonica Movistar in Spain also is offering 4G at the same price as 3G.

Of 65 LTE mobile operators surveyed by GSMA, almost half of them have used the deployment of LTE as an opportunity to introduce a new form of pricing for mobile broadband services.

For many of those mobile operators, differentiation drives the incremental revenue. That is particularly the case when unlimited data plans are replaced by new offers where speed tiers as well as volume-based data allowances are available for purchase.

The speed-based tariffs are most common in Europe, where 90 percent of operators surveyed offer them. Such tariffs are less popular across the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Africa, and least prevalent in North and Latin America where they are yet to emerge.

Bharti Airtel’s move suggests there will be pricing pressure in the Indian market. As elsewhere, though, one indirect benefit and advantage of encouraging LTE usage is that the cost of supplying Internet access is lower with 4G than 3G. For that reason, Bharti Airtel gains benefits when shifting its heaviest users to 4G, and off the 3G network.

Some might ask how 4G deployment will affect the financial return from new 3G networks still being built in India, as both networks represent new mobile Internet access services, and 4G might not be priced higher than 3G.

How Long Term Evolution affects use of Wi-Fi is not completely clear, either. Some studies suggest LTE users reduce use of Wi-Fi while other studies suggest use of Wi-Fi increases. Say