More Evidence that a Fixed Wireless Renaissance is Underway

Here’s one more sign that fixed wireless is undergoing a renaissance in the U.S. market: Verizon will first introduce 5G as a fixed wireless service.

With Google, Facebook and AT&T exploring, testing or intending to deploy fixed wireless  for Internet access networks, the fixed wireless industry is on the brink of major redefinition. AT&T alone has said it would use fixed wireless to serve 13 million locations.

Others such as Starry, also are hoping fixed wireless emerges as a major platform for providing Internet access.

In 2012, there were perhaps 2,000 to 2,500 fixed wireless Internet service providers supplying Internet access to two million to three million subscribers in the United States, according to the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association.

So just about any serious deployment of Google, Facebook or AT&T fixed wireless would immediately reshape the U.S. fixed wireless business.

At 13 million connections, AT&T alone would represent 87 percent of all U.S. fixed wireless installed base, even if Google Fiber and Facebook added zero new accounts in the U.S. market.

Comcast Boosting Usage Caps to 1 Terabyte, from 300 Gb

Comcast says it is boosting data usage limits in test markets from 300 Gbytes to one terabyte.

“Our typical customer uses only about 60 gigabytes of data in a month (by June 1, 2016),”
Comcast says.

“For the very tiny portion of our customer super users (less than one percent of our customer base) who want more than a terabyte, they can sign up for an unlimited plan for an additional $50 a month, or they have the option to purchase additional buckets of 50 gigabytes of data for $10 each,” Comcast says.


source: Economist

To Build a Big New Business Selling Internet Access at $2 a Month, You Need Lower Spectrum Costs

There is a good reason why spectrum policy has emerged as a key underpinning of efforts to eliminate the digital divide. Simply, connecting the unconnected will require infrastructure that costs far less.

For many, that means greater reliance on use of shared spectrum and license-exempt spectrum. The former promises lower license fees, the latter zero license fees. Both will allow business models that can work on lower retail costs.

“Singapore says they really only use 6.5 percent of allocated spectrum,” says  H Nwana, Dynamic Spectrum Alliance executive director. Spectrum sharing can allow much more intensive use of that fallow capacity, without relocating existing licensed users, and almost certainly at lower spectrum costs than a traditional licensed approach would require.

There is very little shared spectrum at the moment, says Richard Thanki, University of Southampton, even though Wi-Fi carries 57 percent of all mobile data traffic. But “a new spectrum consensus is developing,” he says. In the 1990s and 2000s, the thinking was that tradable licenses were the way to gain efficiencies.

“The new consensus is that a mix of licensing regimes, including shared spectrum, will be the paradigm,” Thanki says. “Sharing is likely to become the norm, not the exception.”

That should have positive impact on business models that require very low operating and capital costs.

A good example is the amount of money a household can afford to spend on communications, per month, as a function of household income. For the cohort including the first billion people, with annual income averaging $29,000 annually, a household can afford to spend $205 a month on communications, according to data developed by Richard Thanki, University of Southampton.

In contrast, for the cohort including the seventh billion, a household can afford to spend only about $2.25 per month. Those of you familiar with the mobile market in India will recognize the number. The average mobile account in India represents monthly spending of about $2.

Where the cohort including the second billion people has household income of about  $12,700, they can afford to spend about $53 per month on communications.

The cohort including the third billion, with income is $5,500, can afford to $23 a month on communications..

The cohort including the fourth billion has $2990 annual income, and can afford to buy $12 a month of communications services.

The cohort including the fifth billion earns $1770 annually, and can afford to spend $7 a month.

The cohort including the sixth billion can afford to spend $4.40 per month on communications. The cohort including the fifth billion people can afford to spend $7 per month.

Average annual income for the cohort including the seventh billion people is $540 per year. Africa and India dominate the seventh billion cohort, many would note.

source: Alliance for Affordable Internet

source: Alliance for Affordable Internet

Google Fiber Launching in Nashville

Google Fiber is launching symmetrical 1 Gbps in Nashville. By itself, the launch might not “move the needle” on the number of U.S. consumers buying, or able to buy, gigabit or other high-speed access in the hundreds of megabits per second range.

But it is hard to argue that Google Fiber has failed to change the market, even if competitors sometimes say, with an apparently straight face, that Google Fiber has not affected their thinking at all.

It is hard to argue that Comcast and other firms would be rapidly upgrading their high speed access services to gigabit levels had Google Fiber not entered the market.

On the other hand, it often goes unnoticed that Comcast also has increased Internet speeds for residential customers 16 times in the last 14 years, at rates equivalent to Moore’s Law, Comcast has said.

Comcast, for example, now plans to upgrade 100 percent of its access connections to 1 Gbps, with some 85 percent of locations able to order a 2-Gbps service as well.

There also is a possibly-noteworthy change. In the past, we generally have argued about fiber to the home as a way of enabling high bandwidth for consumers.

These days, the more-relevant issue is how to supply gigabit access, or hundreds of megabits per second of access, rather than physical media.

In the United Kingdom, for example, Virgin Media will use both fiber-to-home and hybrid fiber coax access platforms, supplying identical services and speeds for all customers, no matter which access platform is used.

What now increasingly matters is the level of service consumers can buy, the prices and terms of use that apply to each consumer offer, not necessarily the access medium. That is likely to be even more true once 5G mobile networks are activated.

What you can do, and what you can use, will matter much more than access platform.

Virgin Media Access Upgrades Illustrates Principle That Apps Matter More than Access Method

In the broader Internet ecosystem or the “telecommunications” business, it ultimately is the apps that matter, and less the details of infrastructure. Consider the way Virgin Media plans to upgrade access to 17 million U.K. households by 2019.

At least a quarter of the four million locations to be upgraded as part of Project Lightning will be connected using fiber to the home platforms, rather than the traditional hybrid fiber coax platform.

Customers will not see a difference, as the same set of services and Internet access speeds will be available to all potential customers, no matter what the access method.

Likewise, all consumers will use exactly the same modems and TV set-top boxes, no matter what the access method. The way Virgin Media is deploying its FTTH network uses a protocol known as Radio Frequency Over Glass (RFOG).

RFOG allows the cable operator to use the same headend and customer premises gear, no matter what the access platform, as well as standard HFC transmission techniques.

Only recently, with the rise of the Internet, has “access” actually become a mass market business for telcos, cable TV, fixed wireless and satellite providers. Until then, business models were based on apps (voice, then entertainment video, and later mobile voice and texting.

We sometimes miss the importance of “access” (dial-up, then broadband Internet access) now becoming a “product,” which consumers can buy on its own, in order to use all other lawful apps available on the public Internet, or managed services delivered through IP network tunnels.

Not until “Internet access” became a product did we start to hear about “dumb pipe” business models or the risk of “commodity” pricing and roles.

But that illustrates an important fact: business models in the consumer space always have been built around use of applications. In addition to that, we now have an essential function (Internet access) that is required so people can use apps.

That is not to say managed services have gone away; they haven’t. Carrier voice, messaging, linear video and mobile services remain dominant revenue sources.

Still, aside those managed services, the “dumb pipe” access function is becoming the growth engine. For this reason, all discussions of “dumb pipe” business roles and models often miss the point.

An ISP cannot avoid being a supplier of “dumb pipe” Internet access. In addition to that, many access providers will supply important managed services as well (carrier voice, messaging, video). But the dumb pipe portion of the business is driving growth, not the managed services.

The issue is how much, over time, the access “business” becomes an access “function” provided by some entity with multiple revenue sources, able to supply the access function at lower cost precisely because such access is an input to the overall business model, not the whole business model.

Verizon, EE, Telstra, KT Found LTE-B Alliance

Verizon Communications, Australia’s Telstra, South Korea’s KT and United Kingdom-based EE have formed the LTE-Broadcast Alliance, seeking to influence development of standards and equipment support for LTE Broadcast services, also known as “evolved multimedia broadcast multicast service.”

The goal: LTE-B support in “every top- and mid-tier device launched in 2017.

The business advantage is extreme bandwidth efficiency when sending many copies of a single media message or stream to many users. LTE-B is multicast--akin to TV or radio broadcasting--rather than unicast, the way people grab Internet content.

Though the obvious current set of applications includes local multicasting of sports content, inside stadiums, for example, supporters also believe there are other  applications including push notifications, digital signage and “Internet of Things” updates (Think of software updates for sensors and controllers).

It is Getting Harder to Compare T-Mobile US and AT&T; Business Models are Highly Different

Different business models now showing up in AT&T and T-Mobile US operational results. T-Mobile US touts its success gaining phone accounts. AT&T is growing in other lines of business, including video and Internet of Things.

One can compare the mobile net adds, certainly. Still, for T-Mobile US, mobile is the whole business, and ability to take phone accounts is what matters.

AT&T has shifted its growth efforts to Mexico and entertainment video, quickly. The two firms always had competed in different market segments. But that difference now has widened.

T-Mobile US appears once again to be capturing most of the net account growth in the U.S. mobile business in its first quarter of 2016, much as cable TV firms are gaining nearly 100 percent of the net growth in the fixed line Internet access business.

We will know for certain, soon enough, but some believe the first quarter will show that all the leading four firms gained net phone accounts.

Indeed, AT&T reported it added “2.3 million North American wireless net adds driven by connected devices, Mexico and Cricket.” That language is instructive.

Indeed, AT&T says that “Cricket and connected devices drive strong U.S. subscriber growth.” By omission, that suggests branded postpaid phone adds were not the strength in the quarter.

The market is “North America,” adding Mexico net adds. T-Mobile US reported U.S. adds only, since that is where it operates. Also, AT&T reported “Cricket” adds, which are prepaid accounts. T-Mobile US does break out account net adds that are not “branded postpaid.”

AT&T does report it added a net 712,000 branded (postpaid and prepaid) phone net adds. But that also suggests many of AT&T’s net adds were either tablet or other non-phone net adds, such as Internet of Things sensors.

On the other hand, T-Mobile US and AT&T now have business models that are quite distinct. AT&T has a significant operation in Mexico; T-Mobile US does not. AT&T is a leading provider in the U.S. entertainment video business; T-Mobile US is not. And AT&T is among the leaders in connections supporting the Internet of Things; T-Mobile US does not yet report such accounts as a significant matter.

AT&T has a global enterprise business that T-Mobile US does not support. Also, AT&T is the largest fixed network services provider in the U.S. market. T-Mobile US is mobile only.

source: AT&T

T-Mobile US says it added 2.2 million total net adds in the first quarter of 2016 and more than one million postpaid net new accounts, of which about 877,000 were phone accounts.

T-Mobile US also had retail prepaid net growth of 807,000 accounts.

The quarterly subscriber results do indicate that T-Mobile is adding accounts, including important postpaid phone accounts. But the results also come from two companies with substantially-different business models.