Can Telcos Succeed at Content?

AT&T reportedly is going to launch a new video subscription service targeting viewers interested in anime, video games, niche action sports and other niche content, while Verizon is bidding to buy Yahoo, adding to its content assets anchored by AOL, and launching the Go90 mobile video service.

Some will be be skeptical. The traditional argument is that content is not a telco core competence, which is a valid concern. But content was not a core competence of cable TV operators, either, and they long ago became owners of content businesses.

Nor was linear video subscription a “core competence,” but telcos have successfully entered that business.

Also, as we now see commonly within the Internet ecosystem, firms routinely enter segments of the value chain. That is especially the case for app providers.

Google, Amazon, Netflix, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple are among the firms that moved into ecosystem adjacencies, manufacturing consumer devices, fostering the creation of content and now creating whole access platforms, while fostering new network infrastructure architectures and leading open source, lower-cost network equipment and software approaches.

Such movements into adjacencies are not new even in the telecom business, though such moves in the past rarely have been terribly successful. Many telcos have tried to enter various parts of the computing business, without success, in the past.

In fact, AT&T even owned the largest U.S. cable TV business, before selling those assets to Comcast as part of a deleveraging move. More recently, leading telcos have tried to create roles for themselves in content as well, again without success.

In 2002 the former BellSouth was licensing content from firms such as Disney to create programming assets and services using the then-prominent “portal” strategy.

One might argue there is room for more optimism now. For starters, firms learn from experience, including from what has not worked in the past. It now is quite doubtful whether the traditional “not invented here” syndrome is as big a problem as in the past.

Large service providers arguably are more willing to admit they do not know how to create or operate new assets, and therefore hopefully are more able to allow those business units to succeed.

Still, the outcome is open to some question, in some quarters. Perhaps the template is set by the U.S. cable TV industry, which primarily makes its money from access operations, but now also makes significant revenue by its ownership of content firms.

The overall approach is to “own some of the content and apps you deliver.” If telcos have learned the lessons, they might be able to follow the cable TV model.

Whether telco managements have learned from their prior mistakes, including what many would say was excessive interference with business unit independence, is the issue.

What cable TV executives have managed to do is generally allow content firms to be good at creating content, and profiting from the revenue upside. Telcos will have to learn to operate in the same way.

M2M Fastest-Growing Connected Device Category

Machine-to-machine (M2M) connections will be the fastest-growing category of connected devices, growing nearly 2.5- fold during the forecast period, at 20‑percent CAGR, to 12.2 billion connections by 2020, Cisco now predicts.

Machine-to-machine connections generally are considered a major subset within the broader Internet of Things category. Where M2M generally refers to machines communicating with machines, IoT includes a wider range of personal devices used by people, such as smartwatches, fitness monitors or perhaps medical monitors.

Global Devices and Connections Growth, source: Cisco

By 2020, machine-to-machine (M2M) connections will be 46 percent of total connected devices and Internet access accounts, Cisco now forecasts.

That total includes devices such as smart meters, video surveillance, healthcare monitoring, transportation, and package or asset tracking.

Globally, M2M connections will grow nearly 2.5-fold, from 4.9 billion in 2015 to 12.2 billion by 2020.  

For many, that is almost a secondary matter. The bigger question is which markets will grow fastest, and reach mass market status, soonest.

Connected home applications, such as home automation, home security and video surveillance, connected white goods, and tracking applications, will represent 47 percent, or nearly half, of the total M2M connections by 2020, Cisco predicts.

Connected healthcare, with applications such as health monitors, medicine dispensers, first-responder connectivity, and telemedicine, will be the fastest-growing industry segment, at 49-percent CAGR.

Connected car applications will have the second-fastest growth, at 37-percent CAGR.

Global M2M Segment Growth, source: Cisco

Global M2M Connections Growth, source: Cisco

Though many M2M applications will require connections of modest bandwidth, video will drive traffic volume, as is the case in the smartphone and consumer Internet spaces.

Although the number of connections is growing threefold, global M2M IP traffic will grow sixfold to 2020.

Video applications such as telemedicine and smart car navigation systems are prime examples.

Mobile, Wireless Will Drive 66% of IP Traffic by 2020

Traffic from wireless and mobile devices will account for 66 percent of total IP traffic by 2020, says Cisco.

In 2015, wired devices accounted for the majority of IP traffic at 52 percent.

Also, by 2020, global fixed broadband speeds will reach 47.7 Mbps, up from 24.7 Mbps in 2015. In other words, typical global fixed network speeds will double in five years. Some providers (most notably Comcast), in some markets, have been able to double speeds about every two years, since the dial-up era began.

The point is that creating more restrictions on suppliers, rather than removing barriers, in such a fast-changing market continues to strike some as unhelpful.

And though mobile Internet access is not the only platform people will use, mobile data traffic will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 53 percent between 2015 and 2020.

By way of comparison, global mobile data traffic will grow three times as fast as fixed IP traffic from 2015 to 2020. On the other hand, fixed networks will continue to represent most of the transferred bits.

Global mobile data traffic was five percent of total IP traffic in 2015, and will be 16 percent of total IP traffic by 2020.

IP traffic is growing fastest in the Middle East and Africa, followed by the Asia Pacific region.

Traffic in the Middle East and Africa will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 41 percent between 2015 and 2020, while IP traffic in Asia Pacific will grow at a CAGR of 22 percent.

IP traffic in North America will grow at a CAGR of 19 percent, while IP traffic in Western Europe will grow at a CAGR of 20 percent.

IP traffic in Latin America will grow at a CAGR of 21 percent, while IP traffic in Central and Eastern Europe will grow at a CAGR of 27 percent.

Exabytes per Year, 2020
	Consumer	Business	Total
Internet	1,288	281	1,569
Managed IP	345	52	397
Mobile data	313	54	367
Total	1,947	386	2,332

Can Regulators Impose Universal Service Obligations When There is No Dominant Service Provider?

Even before passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, “non-dominant” access providers had been using their rights to “cherry pick” where they build communications facilities for some time.

First “alternate access” providers got into business to provide high-bandwidth connections for business district enterprises and their designated long distance providers.  

After passage of the Telecommunications Act, competitive local exchange carriers used a combination of leased and owned facilities to provide voice and data services to business customers.

Then Google Fiber convinced city regulators that allowing Google Fiber to build gigabit access facilities neighborhood by neighborhood, and only where there was demand.

That might well be one reason why Verizon suddenly reversed course and decided to build FiOS in at least some neighborhoods in Boston, where it previously had held off from doing so.

Basically, “cherry picking” (selecting to serve only some customer locations) became lawful in an ever-widening number of cases. That new flexibility comes on top of the typical “ubiquitous build” required for the incumbent telcos and cable TV companies.

Eventually, harder questions will have to asked about how the social function of “universal service” is satisfied, when there is no dominant provider with monopoly profits to “tax” for such purposes. We already have taken a half step away from the notion. ISPs and competitive local exchange carriers other than the former incumbent telephone operator have no universal service obligations.

But what happens when the former incumbents are clearly not dominant, because they have lost so much market share?

Assuming some form of universal service requirement will be imposed, in some way, on service providers, the issue is how to apportion the cost among a range of providers, none of which truly is “dominant.”

It is not hard to imagine markets where three fixed networks and three mobile networks all provide high speed access, and eventually all six networks can offer gigabit service over at least significant portions of their coverage areas, and none is “dominant.”

Collecting the tax is not difficult. We already tax telecom bills. We already disburse funds, in rural areas. In urban areas, there has not traditionally been an issue. Eventually, there will be.

Sri Lanka Launches Smart City Project

Sri Lanka's central hill capital of Kandy will be developed as the first smart city on the island, Sri Lanka Minister of Town Planning and Water Resources Rauf Hakeem said.

Generally speaking a smart city could include intelligent management and monitoring of water, electrical systems and sanitation systems; public transportation or housing automation. Other smart city efforts focus on controlling or monitoring air pollution, street light system or promoting home automation systems.

source: Lamudi

Siemens also will be working on the smart cities project. That might include use of Siemens systems for smart power grids or energy-efficient buildings.

The Korean government signed a memorandum of understanding with Sri Lanka to participate in the planned $63.2 billion smart city development project.

Under the terms of the agreement, the Korean government plans to share its expertise in several issues including smart water management, intelligent transport systems and smart home systems such as home automation and digital parking systems.

The project is part of Sri Lanka’s plan to develop nine new towns in Colombo and its adjacent areas by 2030.

The plan is to develop nine new cities including one near an airport and other cities specialized in science, industries, tourism and logistics.

In Rural Asia, Internet Access Has to Be Marketed; It Does Not Sell Itself

source: Brookings

In both developed and emerging economies, people remain digitally unconnected for a variety of reasons.

In many cases, access networks literally are not present. In other cases, local-language services and content are unavailable.

Some potential users have poor computer skills or disabilities such as blindness.

In other cases, potential users simply do not understand the benefits, said Jay Chen, Huawei India CEO.

Also, Internet access “does not sell itself.” It “must be marketed.”

“There is an old saying about life insurance: that it isn’t bought, it’s sold, meaning few people want the product unless someone explicitly spells out its benefits,” said Chen. “Connectivity is like that with some populations.”

But connectivity, though necessary, is not sufficient to drive extensive adoption. “Huawei’s research also shows that the world’s most digitally connected countries aim to enhance user experience and stimulate demand, rather than focusing exclusively on providing cheaper connections,” said Chen.

Others note that digital illiteracy (people do not know how to use smartphones, computers), language barriers, literacy, taxes, fees, access prices and lack of perceived relevant content are barriers to wider use of the Internet, even if access facilities are not the issue.

That is another way of noting something very important about the Internet ecosystem. Access is necessary. But the reason access to the Internet is necessary is that people want to do things with apps, and use services.

And controversial though the practice remains, zero rating does work. In a number of countries, zero rating services have enabled people to get access to the Internet who otherwise had no access, a study by Brookings has found.

Globe found zero rating doubled Internet users and grew Globe Internet access customer base 25 percent.

In Paraguay, “the number of people using the internet by 50 percent over the course of the partnership and [an] increase [in the] daily data usage by more than 50 percent,” after zero rating of Internet Basics was introduced.

The number of Facebook users rose 154 percent in Nigeria, 85 percent in Ghana, and 50 percent in Kenya after Internet Basics was introduced.

For the continent of Africa as a whole, there was a reported 114 percent increase in Facebook users after the launch of zero rating , Brookings says.

U.S. Media Consumption Approaching Zero Sum Game

source: eMarketer

Up to this point, U.S. consumer media consumption has not literally been a zero sum game, as total hours of consumption have grown, even as new media formats have emerged.

Though multitasking has resulted in growing amounts of media consumption by U.S. adults, there will come a point where additional media consumption is not possible because people need to work, eat, sleep and commute to work.

We might be nearing that point, where growth will stop and gains by one type of media will have to come at the expense of others.

On average, U.S. residents interact with media for 12 hours, 5 minutes each day.

But the daily total is expected to grow by just three minutes between 2016 and 2018. That is going to intensify competition between media formats, since, in a zero sum game, a contestant can win only if another contestant loses.

Will a 3rd Mobile Operator Ever Try to Attack the Philippines Mobile Market?

Reasonable people--not to mention communications regulators--might well agree that duopolies, though better than monopolies--do not always deliver the benefits of competition in a robust way. That is not to say there is no competition: typically there is rather serious competition.

There simply is not the degree of disruption that happens when a third strong player enters a market.

So it is that some question the wisdom of San Miguel Corp. selling its spectrum assets to Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. and Globe Telecom, the two dominant providers in the Philippines telecom market.

The deal raises more than $1 billion for San Miguel, and both PLDT and Globe acquired half of the assets.

The two operators, which together have a 99 percent market share of mobile connections, will pay a total of PHP52.8 billion ($1.13 billion) for assets including 700MHz spectrum.

Though San Miguel had tried to launch its own mobile business, it eventually decided to sell its spectrum assets to the two dominant providers, after failing to secure a needed operating  partner. In that regard, San Miguel had negotiated for a year with Telstra, but could not reach an agreement.

The Foundation for Economic Freedom  has urged the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) to review the deal.

“The PCC should take into account that it is mandated by Republic Act No. 10667 or the Philippine Competition Act to implement the national competition  policy and prohibit anti-competitive agreements, abuse of dominant position, and merger or acquisition agreements that substantially prevent, restrict or lessen competition in the market,” FEF said.

About 20 MHz of 700-MHz spectrum apparently will be returned to the government for eventual auction, to encourage market entry by a third competitor.

That might not be so easy. Japan and South Korea also have been trying to encourage a third provider to enter their mobile markets, and have been repeatedly unsuccessful. One might guess that potential entrants see little chance of significantly cutting into the market share of the leaders in those markets.

That appears to have been the case in the Philippines as well.

IoT Forecasts are Wrong, History Suggests

All present “Internet of Things” forecasts are likely to be wrong, and wrong on the high side, especially in the early years. That simply is the pattern when new technologies and markets emerge. 

Almost always, when new technology is adopted, expectations are too high for the early deployments, but often too low in the later years.

There is a chance the forecasts will be correct in terms of magnitude, but wrong in terms of timing. 

A complicating matter is that different definitions are used, either inflating or deflating the estimates. Some of the confusion is understandable. The broad notion of devices connected to the Internet makes sense.

But some major categories of devices fitting that definition by excluded, to avoid confusion. Internet-connected phones, PCs and tablets are generally excluded. Mostly everything else is included.

Even so, the number of product categories and functions is diverse enough to confuse most of us, most of the time, about where the growth exists.

Eventually, we will reach some common understanding. But possibly not soon.

Present estimates of IoT deployment vary widely, in part because definitions vary.

There might be 35 billion to 50 billion IoT devices in use by 2020. But the higher estimate often includes smartphones, tablets and personal computers (devices that many do not consider IoT devices).

If that is the case, even the more-conservative forecasts--all other trends developing as forecast--are too high, because they include many billions of "non-IoT" devices. And even if the forecasts prove correct in terms of magnitude, they are likely to prove wrong in terms of timing.

The market will take far longer to develop, than many seem to anticipate.

source: Business Insider, devices in billions

source: IoT Analytics

Precisely which segments will develop first, and substantially, is a big unknown. Some seem to believe consumer wearables or connected home appliances will lead; others think business devices will drive most of the adoption. Yet others think "government-mandated" apps, devices and connections will lead.

By some estimates, the industrial IoT might already have largely arrived. The bad news for industrial IoT proponents is that, if that is correct, industrial IoT growth will not be so robust as many expect, and most of the deployments will happen in the consumer appliances area. That largely is driven by home automation or home security apps.

source: The Linley Group  

Others think the volume of deployments will be by businesses and governments (“smart city” apps, broadly defined).

source: Business Insider, devices in billions

Virtualized Networks Will Disrupt Supplier Business Models

The shift to virtualized networks, as you would expect, will disrupt the telecom infrastructure supplier market. That pattern already is happening in the data center market as well, as open source, virtualized and “do it yourself” approaches to data center infrastructure have taken hold.  

"Part of the challenge for the vendors is that it certainly upset the vendor business model, because instead of buying boxes we were now going to buy software and buy it in smaller chunks, and we've been vocal about having open source play a key role in the ecosystem," says Krish Prabhu, AT&T CTO.

More is coming. The Telecom Infra Project, initiated by Facebook but now supported by a number of leading telecom infrastructure suppliers, also is working to essentially commoditize hardware and create more functionality on an open and “computing-style model.”  

The project aims to to “develop new technologies and approaches to building and deploying telecom network infrastructure,” according to Jay Parikh, Facebook global head of engineering and infrastructure.

Facebook, Intel, and Nokia have pledged to contribute an initial suite of reference designs, while other members such as operators Deutsche Telekom and SK Telecom will help define and deploy the technology as it fits their needs, said Parikh.

Telecom Infra Project  members will work together to contribute designs in three areas including  access, backhaul, and core and management.

Significantly, the effort will apply Open Compute Project models of openness and disaggregation as methods of spurring innovation. In other words, in addition to relying on open source, the Project also will rely on use of standard, “commodity” hardware.

“In what is a traditionally closed system, component pieces will be unbundled, affording operators more flexibility in building networks,” Parikh says.

The net result is that telecom networks will cost less in the future. Not only are service providers moving to adopt virtualized approaches to network gear, with firms such as Facebook pushing that model, but rival platforms, including cable TV networks and coming fixed wireless and mobile networks already are suggesting that lower-cost access models are possible.

The AT&T  Domain 2.0 program, based on use of software-defined networks (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV), is part of that shift.

India Authorizes MVNOs, Will New Business Models Emerge?

Allowing operation of  mobile virtual network operators in the Indian mobile market will be a game changer, says Ravi Shankar Prasad, Communications, and IT minister.

Others are not so sure, given the intensely-competitive nature of the Indian mobile market and the entry of Reliance Jio into the market.

Perhaps paradoxically, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India believes the new MVNOs will primarily focus on services for customers in rural areas, since that is an underserved niche.

Much could depend on the full details of the enabling regulations, which appear to allow a significant amount of owned facilities, though MVNOs will not be allowed to be assigned spectrum by the underlying carriers or build or least their own “core network” facilities.

It is not immediately clear whether MVNOs will be allowed to separately acquire spectrum.

The definitions will matter.

In any scenario, it appears India could be part of a new  trend for MVNO business models.

Traditionally, MVNOs have rented virtually everything they need from an underlying carrier, without building their own facilities or acquiring spectrum.

But new possibilities are emerging as cable TV operators, for example, explore “Wi-Fi first” models that are a blend of rented capacity and owned infrastructure.

So the interesting angle in India will be whether new forms of wholesale services and owned facilities will emerge.

For example, would a fiber connection from a village to the furthest optical node operated by an existing facilities-based mobile operator be considered “core” or facilities allowed under the rules for MVNOs?

That, of course, assumes MVNOs can own their towers, radios and associated infrastructure, something that typically is not part of the MVNO licensing regime in other countries. But such nuances would not be new.

As in the past, the difference between resellers and MVNOs was sometimes hard to define with precision. In some cases, the distinction turned on such nuances as whether the MVNO had its own billing system, while a reseller used the underlying carrier’s billing system.

So, too, might the difference between an MVNO and a facilities-based mobile operator become a bit more porous.