Will Eventual Sprint Owner Try to Disrupt U.S. Mobile Market?

The outcome of the bidding for Sprint is not yet concluded, but it might not be incorrect to suggest that whether Dish Network or SoftBank wins Sprint, there is potential for a disruption of the U.S. mobile market. If Dish wins Sprint, the attack is more likely to take longer to develop.

Dish would immediately create bundles (Sprint voice and data with Dish video). But the big changes would come later, when the video portion of the bundle shifts from satellite to mobile delivery. But that would take time.

If SoftBank wins Sprint, the assault would come quicker. While SoftBank would aim to leverage new services and applications, as it did in the Japanese market, SoftBank also might launch a disruptive assault on retail pricing and packaging, as it also did in Japan.

How much the assault would resemble what Illiad’s “Free” has done in the French market is unclear. But Free’s attack, squarely on disruptive levels of value and retail pricing, has allowed it to grab nine percent market share in about 15 months.

Iliad offers users unlimited calling (domestic) and 3 gigabytes of data for EUR20 per month, prices that have proven attractive enough to entice nine percent of French consumers to change providers.

To be sure, European mobile revenue has been under pressure since at least 2007. In part, that is because mobile data revenue has so far failed to compensate for the sharp decline in mobile voice revenue, according to Wireless Intelligence research.

That study found mobile average revenue per user had fallen by 20 percent between 2007 and 2010, dropping from EUR25 in 2007 to EUR20 in 2010 on average.

A major reason is a decline 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. France has been particularly affected, one might argue, because of the new level of competition.

SFR in the first quarter of 2013 suffered an 11 percent  year-over-year revenue decline, as it faces the second year of price competition with Free, the upstart mobile operation owned by Illiad.

Orange recently reported an 8.1 percent fall in first-quarter 2013 revenue.  

In the 15 months since its launch, Free has secured around nine percent of the French mobile customer base.

Illiad Group, parent company of Free Mobile, said that sales in its mobile business had increased by 202 per cent to €294.5 million from €97.5 million, with the company adding 870,000 mobile subscribers during the first quarter to take its total to 6.08 million.

EU27: Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) 2007-2010

Source: Wireless Intelligence

And, as competition in the French market has at least one of the three leading providers looking for some way to merge with another entity to strengthen its position, a SoftBank assault could spur more thinking about market structure. In France, the thinking is that four providers probably cannot survive, even if French regulators say that is a minimum number of providers necessary to preserve competition.

In the United States, where regulators and antitrust officials likewise have suggested that four is the minimum number of providers necessary to ensure robust competition, a disruptive price assault by SoftBank would challenge those notions.

As the Broadband Availability Gap study suggested, a three-competitor market reduces ISP average revenue per user by 28 percent, and take rates by 75 percent. And the four-leader U.S. market has impact arguably more severe than that.

A 3-Provider ISP Market Reduces ARPU 28%, Take Rates by 75%

Competition has implications. As the broadband availability gap study suggested, a three-competitor market reduces ISP average revenue per user by 28 percent, and take rates by 75 percent. 

That latter statistic is quite important, as it means any single facilities-based ISP strands as much as 75 percent of its invested capital.

The corollary is that the cost per customer has to reflect the cost of the stranded assets. If, for example, the cost of the network were $1,000 per location, at a 25 percent take rate, the cost per customer would be $4,000. 

That's one reason why the economics of wireless networks are better than fixed networks, especially under competitive conditions. There is much less stranded capital. 

One concrete example is the French mobile market, where upstart "Free," owned by Illiad, is forcing the other three legacy carriers to cut prices as they lose market share. Since the launch of Free, revenues, incumbent profit margins and market share have been lost. 

SFR suffered an 11 percent  year-over-year revenue decline, as it faces the second year of price competition with Free. The three legacy providers (Orange, SFR and Bouygues) have seen average revenue per user in France fall to $36.25 during the last quarter of 2012, from $43.37 a year earlier, according to Informa.

Gigabit Networks are a Real Challenge in Rural Areas

Unless something fairly dramatic happens, gigabit networks will be unevenly deployed around the United States. No matter what might be done in suburban and urban markets, rural areas still have very long loop lengths (which raises network cost) and low-density populations, which both raises network cost and limits revenue potential.

Frontier Communications, which operates rural telco networks in a number of states, reports that 80 percent of its users buy 6 Mbps Internet access services.

About 75 percent of all locations can buy 6 Mbps service. About 54 percent can buy 12 Mbps service. About 42 percent of locations can buy 20 Mbps service.

And that roughly hints at the magnitude of any decision to upgrade networks more in line with gigabit networks that will be the future standard.

There are both “demand” issues and “cost of supply” issues. Current demand seems to be gravitate to 6 Mbps, even when 12 Mbps and 20 Mbps services are available. So demand for gigabit networks might seem a stretch.

One might argue that the take rates for higher-speed services would be higher if the price were lower, and that is true. Whether Frontier, with its current cost structure and revenue requirements, would find that an easy matter is quite unclear.

But cost of supply is the other huge issue. Some studies suggest fiber to the home cost can range from $5,000 per site to $20,000 or more, per site.  

The Broadband Availability Gap study suggested serving seven million underserved U.S. homes would require an inducement of about $23.5 billion, over and above the actual costs of construction, to create incentives for service providers to make the investment, estimated at $32.4 billion.

If one really wanted to build fiber to home networks for 130 million U.S. homes, with active bandwidth of 100 Mbps, the cost could range up to $670 billion, the study suggested. Gigabit networks, offering an order of magnitude more bandwidth, would cost more.

And Frontier has better prospects than most independent rural telcos. It is larger and generates more actual customer revenue than the typical rural telco.

About 2005 Frontier made a decision not to rely so heavily on “regulatory revenues” such as universal service, and to instead focus on actual customer revenue.

Since then, Frontier’s contribution from non-customer sources, which was as high as 60 percent, has fallen to less than 10 percent. Much of that change, one might argue was a decision to focus more heavily on business customer revenues, in or out of region.

At December 31, 2011, Frontier had 3,103,800 residential customers and 309,900 business customers.

Business revenue tells the story, though. For the six-month period ending Dec. 31, 2011, Frontier earned $692 million in business customer revenue, and $544 million in consumer revenue.  In other words, business customers generated 56 percent of total revenue.

Or, to put it another way, the nine percent of business customers generate 56 percent of Frontier revenues.

For Windstream, a firm that is similar in some ways, the reliance on business customer revenue is even more pronounced. Business revenue in the fourth quarter of 2011 was $888 million, while consumer revenues were $118 million. So Windstream generated 88 percent of revenue from business customers, not consumers.

Those results are driven by acquisitions. Windstream bought PAETEC, a major business-focused competitive local exchange carrier. Frontier bought a huge chunk of former Verizon Wireless assets.

Both acquisitions had the effect of boosting business customers and business revenue to unusual levels for any rural telco.

The point is that whatever problems policymakers and service providers might think they face now, just trying to get broadband of 4 Mbps to 10 Mbps to rural homes, the problems will be tougher when the standard gets moved to a gigabit.

FCC to Test Mobile Substitution

The idea that faster mobile networks can displace some amount of fixed network broadband is not a new idea, just an idea that is more realistic as networks beginning with Long Term Evolution become widespread, allowing mobile substitution to replicate the experience of fixed network access, if not the same pricing, terms and conditions of service.

The Federal Communications Commission itself plans to examine wireless substitution as part of its wider studies of transition issues from the legacy public switched network to new IP networks.

In fact, the FCC wants to conduct an actual field trial, where a mobile network would provide a home wireless voice product or data product or both, intended as a replacement for

a customer’s existing home voice and broadband data services.

The FCC wants to test such a mobile substitute offer in at least one geographic area within each participating local exchange carrier’s service territory and at least one geographic area outside of each participating LEC’s wireline service territory.

That sort of flexibility, though not universally welcomed, could eventually result in a more flexible policy towards “ends” rather than “means,” allowing service providers to use any mix of network technologies that make sense in any area, instead of requiring use of specific platforms.

In an environment where users essentially are integrating their own access from multiple sources (fixed, mobile, public Wi-Fi, work networks), that makes sense.

None of that means mobile networks or fixed wireless networks everywhere and always will be complete substitutes for fixed network access. Gigabit networks will be expensive for all ISPs, but will be especially challenging for users of wireless approaches (satellite, mobile, fixed wireless).

That suggests providers of fixed gigabit access service and mobility access will be complementary as much as substitutes. The greater challenge will lie in between. Either full mobility (with reduced bandwidth) or huge bandwidth (gigabit networks) are the easy segments of the market.

Offers in between will have to work to define the specific value propositions. That's typical in most markets, though. The easiest positions are "high value, high price" and "reasonable value, low price."

It's offers in the middle that have to work at establishing a clear position in the consumer mind.

Unstable Fixed Network Business Open to Assault from "Start-Up" Style Value Propositions

The U.S. fixed network business is unstable, and becoming more unstable. In part, that is because revenue is shifting to the mobile networks, stranding assets owned by the largest fixed network providers. That means fixed network operators have a revenue problem.

Add to that the increased burden placed on each remaining customer as high fixed costs have to be shared across a shrinking base of customers. That means operating costs must be slashed.

Rural service providers have other problems, namely shrinking support funds and a new emphasis on broadband access, not voice.

Still, the main problem is that mobile networks generate about two thirds of global industry revenue.

So no matter what is spent on the fixed networks, they only generate a third of total revenue. And that assumes the revenue ratios do not tilt in the direction of mobile even more than at present.

U.S wireless revenue in 2012 of about $335 billion represents about 66 percent of communications revenues.  Fixed network voice revenue was about $132 billion, with an additional $38 billion in broadband access revenue and $6 billion in television revenue, for a total of about $176 billion in fixed network revenue.

U.S. mobile revenues as a percentage of total revenues have been climbing for a decade. The only issue has been the precise year of crossover, when wireless surpasses fixed network revenue. That will happen in 2013, some believe.

To be sure, the executives running fixed networks are smart. They will redeploy capital into other lines of business, such as Comcast already has done. They will use bundling and packaging to protect legacy services. They will adjust pricing. They will try to create new services. They will buy assets to substitute for organic growth.

Still, all of that essentially amounts to running in place.

But market instability also creates opportunities for other providers. Those with lower operating costs or a radically-different value proposition will have advantages. Some incremental advantage will be claimed by service providers able to offer “same value, lower price.”

But major changes in market share will require more than that. In the start-up business, the notion has been that challengers need an order of magnitude better value-price advantage to take on legacy market leaders.

And that is precisely the danger Google Fiber represents. On either value or price-per-bit metrics, Google Fiber offers an order of magnitude improvement in end user experience.

But that probably also illustrates what might be needed if a serious challenge to current ISP market share is to happen. Competitors will have to move from "same value, lower price" to the metric used by start-ups: an order of magnitude better value, same or lower price."

Video Consumption Now Has Strategic ISP Implications

Based simply on the volume of traffic, you might argue that all transport and access providers now are in the business of delivering video entertainment bits to end users, with the greatest proportion of that content using real time streaming.

In part, that drives investment in networks that support higher bandwidths. Just as significantly, real-time video will challenge ISPs on the cost front. Even after capital investment to support higher access bandwidth, IP transit costs will skyrocket.

The dominant facilities-based ISPs largely will avoid those costs, since they can peer with each other.

As once was the case for dial-up access providers, where the advent of broadband essentially destroyed the former dial-up business, a shift to gigabit networks will have strategic implications for smaller and independent ISPs.

Basically, gigabit networks will favor tier one providers at the expense of virtually all wireless providers, much as broadband favored facilities-based providers at the expense of over the top dial-up ISPs.

Mobile service providers will continue to compete, even when “speed challenged,” compared to fixed networks, because the key value still will be mobility, not speed.

Real-time entertainment (streaming video and audio) already is the largest traffic category on every network, in every region, (more than 68 percent of downstream bytes during peak period, compared with 65 percent at the end of 2012), according to Sandvine.

Already, more than 25 percent of all streaming audio and video bytes delivered to mobile devices are delivered to those devices in the home.

In fact, more than 20 percent of all traffic on fixed networks in North America already is generated by a smart phone or tablet.

And Apple devices (iPads, iPhones, iPods, AppleTVs, and Mac computers) account for over 45 percent of all streaming audio and video on fixed access networks in North America, Sandvine  notes.

In North America, mean usage (simple arithmetic average) on fixed networks was 44.7 GB, a 39 percent year-over-year increase from 32.1 GB for the same period of 2012.

In Asia-Pacific, demand likewise is driven by entertainment, which accounts for 51.2 percent of total downstream traffic during peak period. But the Asia-Pacific region unusual because peer-to-peer apps are highly popular.

Additionally, Asia-Pacific is the only region where BitTorrent was the top application during peak period.

The median (half used more, half used less) monthly usage on fixed networks grew 56.5 percent, from 10.3 GB to 18.2 GB.

Netflix accounts for 32.3 percent of downstream traffic during peak period.

YouTube, which in the first half of 2012 accounted for 13.8 percent of downstream traffic, now accounts for over 17.1 percent of traffic. Sandvine believes the increase in YouTube traffic is caused by the continued growth of smart phones and tablets inside the home.

Amazon represents 1.31 percent and HBO Go had 0.34 percent of traffic.

And, as has been the prevailing pattern, in North America, the top one percent of subscribers who make the heaviest use of the network’s upstream resources account for 34.2 percent of total upstream traffic.

The heaviest one percent of downstream users account for 10.1 percent of downstream bytes. The lightest 50 percent of users account for only 6.4 percent of total monthly traffic.

Mobile network usage likewise has grown substantially. Over the past year, mean North American monthly usage increased from 312.8 MB to 390.1 MB, an increase of 25 percent.

Mean monthly usage in Asia-Pacific grew from 659.3 MB to 700.4 MB since the end of 2012. Real-Time Entertainment accounts for half of total downstream traffic during peak period in the Asia-Pacific region.

What is unique to the Asia-Pacific region is that real-time entertainment is

the top upstream category accounting for 28 percent of traffic. The primary driver

behind the popularity of real-time entertainment in Asia-Pacific is the use of the popular peercasting application PPStream (available on PC, tablets, and smartphones) which sends and transmits video simultaneously over the network.

Median North American mobile usage more than doubled from 25.5 MB to 58.7 MB, year over year.

YouTube represents 25 percent of all North American traffic on mobile networks during peak period. And use of Netflix is growing as well.

Netflix’s downstream traffic share in North America almost doubled from 2.2 percent to 4.0 percent, year over year.

In Asia-Pacific, the heaviest one percent of users account for 41.1 percent of upstream traffic, 23.2 percent of downstream traffic and 24.2 percent of aggregate bytes each month. Significant use of PC air cards and tethering likely accounts for the heavier European and Asia-Pacific mobile data consumption, compared to North America.

Predictions of Mobile Data Growth Cut in Half

Most forecasts of mobile data consumption over the last couple of years until 2012 were consistent in the prediction that bandwidth demand would grow between 25 times to 26 times over roughly a five year period.

But the latest estimate by Cisco suggests growth of something like 13 times over the next five years. The revisions are not unusual. It frequently has been the case that linear extrapolations have suggested bandwidth growth more robust than eventually developed.

One might assume that is typical of any growth rate, for any product, as adoption matures. One might also assume there are changes in both supplier and end user behavior, though, that change the demand curve over time.

Suppliers learn to promote offload of mobile data to the fixed networks, and users learn how to do that on a consistent basis.

A 2010 view:

A 20

11 view:

A 2012 view: