Microsoft May Be Closing Developer Gap

Over the last couple of years, there has been an all-out war among Apple, Google, Microsoft, RIM and others to win the hearts and minds of developers. 


It appears that Microsoft Microsoft is now closing the gap, at least in terms of developers increasing attention to the Microsoft platform.

By 2015, :PSTN Voice Might be Only 10% of Total Lines

Axvoice has gathered up some nice overall statistics on the state of the telecom industry. No surprise: VoIP and mobile services are growing, landline voice is declining. By 2015, legacy voice lines using TDM might represent only about 10 percent of all voice lines in service. 


That is going to put huge pressure on incumbents who have to support those lines, and will lead to more pressure to decommission the entire public switched network, as the fixed costs of supporting that particular service will be hugely expensive, compared to either fixed network VoIP or mobile voice. 

Mobile Broadband Subscribers Grew 50% in 2011

“The number of mobile broadband subscribers jumped nearly 50 percent in 2011 to 846 million and we expect that number to reach 2.6 billion by 2016, driven by Brazil, Russia, India, China and others in the developing world,” says  Stéphane Téral, Infonetics Research principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics. 


“We anticipate Asia Pacific to account for over half of the world’s mobile broadband subscribers by 2016, while Latin America will see the fastest growth,” he says. 

Global Telecom Investment Grows in 2012, Lead by Mobile

Infonetics Research expects worldwide service provider capital investment to climb in 2012, then level out in 2015 and 2016 at around the $345 billion mark.

Global telecom carrier capital spending grew three percent to $301 billion in 2011, up from 2010 levels, according to Infonetics Research. Spending on every type of network equipment grew in 2011, with the exception of TDM voice, which continued its steep decline.

Telecom service provider revenue grew six percent to $1.8 trillion worldwide in 2011 over 2010, Infonetics also says Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics at Infonetics Research.

"We’re expecting a telecom capex hike in 2012 as operators around the world ramp their spending like crazy to launch LTE networks, modernize their mobile networks, and carry out national wireline broadband initiatives,” says Téral.

Clearwire, Sprint, and T-Mobile USA in the United States;NTT DoCoMo and Softbank Mobile in Japan and KT, LGU+, and SK telecom in South Korea will be among the carriers expected to increase their capital investments in 2012.

China also recently allocated $58 billion for further investment in telecom infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Europe's Big Five have increased capital investment two  percentage points for the first time in five years.

In Latin America, operators increased capex 25 percent in 2011, led by América Móvil and Telefónica.

Cord Cutting, in the Form of Broadcast-Only Service, Is Growing

GfK Media now suggests that the number of U.S. households opting for over the air broadcast service is growing a bit faster.


"In 2012, we see homes with broadcast-only reception increase at a statistically significant level (two percent or more) for the first time in over five years," GfK Media says.


In fact, some 17.8 percent of TV homes report broadcast-only reception, compared with levels of 14 percent to 15 percent levels seen over the last five years.


That means that around 21 million homes rely only on over-the-air broadcast rather than a subscription TV service.


And broadcast-only levels are even higher among minority and lower-income homes, as well as with younger householders; all have seen an increase in broadcast-only reception in the past year, GfK Media says.


"Our data show that only one third of broadcast-only homes actually did cut the cord – they cancelled pay TV service at their current household - and only one sixth of those broadcast-only homes report some type of online service connected to their TV set," says Allan Fromen, GfK Media VP.


In other words, 66 percent of the new "broadcast only" users were not formerly cable, satellite or telco TV customers. 


About a third of the new broadcast-only users formerly had a subscription TV service, and more than 70 percent of those consumers said cost-cutting was the reason they abandoned subscription TV service.

Europe Mobile Operators Will Merge, Because Scale Matters

Economies of scale always are important in the global telecom business, which is one reason why firms tend to become bigger, and fewer, over time. A consolidation process has been underway in most regions and countries since at least 2001, but many believe Europe will be the focus of much activity in the years ahead, in large part because scale economies have not yet been maximized.


With the mobile market saturated, and average revenue per user dropping, scale is nearly always seen as one way to arrest the negative impact on service provider revenues. Simply, if organic growth is difficult, a service provider can buy growth by acquiring new customer bases and revenue streams outside the existing market.


Of course, volume alone does not "cure" declining average revenue per user problems. But greater scale allows service providers to operate more efficiently, wringing costs out of operations. On the other hand, one typical way of compensating for declining ARPU is to increase sales volume. Selling more units helps keep total revenue in line, even when ARPU is lower. 


European mobile data use has so far failed to compensate for the sharp decline in mobile voice revenue, according to Wireless Intelligence research. A 2011 study found that mobile ARPU across the 27 European Union (EU27) countries had fallen by 20 percent over the last three years, dropping from EUR25 in 2007 to EUR20 in 2010 on average. 


The drop was caused primarily by ongoing declines in the average per-minute price for voice calls, which dropped from EUR0.16 to EUR0.14 in the EU27 mobile markets over the period.


Over the past decade, smaller service providers have been buying other companies, and larger tier-one service providers have been making cross-border investments to boost scale. 


But Yankee Group Research VP Declan Lonergan isn't so sure the consolidation process will proceed as much as some believe, though. "There will certainly be more sharing of networks, joint-procurement partnerships, and even acquisitions of fourth-placed operators by market leaders within individual markets," he says. "But it would be naive to think national regulators will stand by and watch all of the work they have done to foster competition during the past twenty years be swept away by a wave of consolidation."


Nor will the wave of consolidation necessarily reduce the amount of competition in national markets. Longergan believes "all European countries will still have at least three competing operators five years from now, along with at least two viable MVNOs." 

Verizon Boosts FiOS Speeds

The majority of existing Verizon FiOS customers will pay $10 to $15 more per month to double or triple their Internet speed, under new service plans Verizon has announced.

The new speeds, available in a range of double- and triple-play bundles, plus stand-alone service, feature tiers with download/upload speeds of 50/25, 75/35, 150/65 and 300/65 megabits per second, Verizon says.  

Three of those speeds  75/35, 150/65 and 300/65 -- are twice as fast as those previously offered, Verizon notes. In addition, Verizon will continue to offer its entry-level speed of 15/5 Mbps.

The two highest downstream speed offers, of 150 Mbps and 300 Mbps, as well as the new 65 Mbps upstream speed, are said by Verizon to be the fastest, mass scale U.S. residential Internet speeds available in the market.

Existing FiOS customers can upgrade to the new bundles and enjoy the faster speeds anytime, with no upgrade fee.


The latest upgrades are simply more evidence that, despite criticism, Internet service providers continue to upgrade speeds for U.S. consumers.