Unlimited* Plans Now Offered, in Some Form, by all Four Largest U.S. Mobile Firms

Despite the potential danger posed by truly "unlimited" usage plans, all four U.S. mobile service providers now offer some form of "unlimited" usage, though offered in ways that limit potential exposure.

Unlimited mobile data is one of those concepts that requires an asterisk (Unlimited*). Now offered in some form by all the leading U.S. mobile service providers, “unlimited” does not generally mean there are no usage limits.

Customers still buy buckets of data usage. But if those usage limits are hit in any billing period,  mobile data speeds get reduced, at some point, to 2G speeds (128 kbps, in some cases). That, many would argue, is better than losing all connectivity.

So many would not complain about that limitation, at some level. It does mean the dreaded “overage” charges are not an issue. That saves consumers money, should usage climb beyond the usage bucket the customer chose to pay for.

That is one way service providers limit their exposure to heavy users whose behavior might change, were usage literally unlimited.

Verizon "One Fiber" Shows Changed Fiber Economics and Business Model

Verizon’s “One Fiber” strategy for the city of Boston shows the changed role of the fixed network as well as a shift of the business model. The original vision for FiOS was consumer services, lower operating costs and support for broadband (mainly entertainment video, at the time).

The new vision builds on a number of revenue streams and operating considerations, anchored by enterprise services and support for the mobile network.

There probably also is a bigger potential role for fixed wireless backhaul, should use of fixed wireless develop further.

“I think of 5G initially as, in effect, wireless fiber, which is wireless technology that can provide an enhanced broadband experience that could only previously be delivered with physical fiber to the customer,” said Lowell McAdam, Verizon CEO.

That new use of fixed wireless will be designed to support gigabit speeds. “As we densify the network for 4G, it sets us up perfectly for deploying 5G with the millimeter wave technology,” said McAdam.

Compared to using fiber-to-the-home, fixed wireless should cut network costs in half, McAdam says. By using fixed wireless, Verizon also avoids the cost of drop cable connections, the second-biggest driver of the access network capital cost.

“We expect there to be a significant cost reduction” for fixed wireless access, compared to fiber, McAdam said.

Essentially, Verizon believes it can create a denser fiber network that initially supports enterprise customers and also supports backhaul for a dense network of small cells across the city.

But doing so also lays the foundation for consumer fiber-to-home services and support for Internet of Things applications as well.

"When we looked at running the fiber for wireless, we said, well that will enhance what we can do from an enterprise perspective and by the way, it's only $300 million more over the next six years to actually deploy fiber to the home from that same fiber," said Fran Shammo, Verizon CFO.

The larger point is that the business model for fiber facilities in metro areas has changed. Essentially, in dense areas such as Boston, what Verizon must spend to support business users, the mobile backhaul network and new small cell deployments, the incremental cost of targeted consumer fiber-to-home deployments is reduced dramatically.

And where consumer FTTH does not make sense, Verizon can use fixed wireless to supply gigabit access connections.

New Facebook Compression Method Works 3-5 Times Faster Than Older Method

A new open source compression method developed by Facebook has lead to a significant reduction in  storage and compute requirements for Facebook data centers.

Replacing zlib--the prior method--with Zstandard 1.0 resulted in six percent storage reduction in Facebook data warehouses, 19 percent reduction in CPU requirements for compression and 40 percent reduction in CPU requirements for decompression, said Yann Collet, Facebook compression expert.

Zstandard 1.0 compresses data about three times to five times faster than the previous method used by Facebook. Zstandard 1.0 also takes up 10 percent to 15 percent less storage space.

Compression speed also is about two times faster than zlib, the previous method. “Command line tooling numbers” are more than three times faster, as well.

Which IoT Network Wins, in the End?

source: Ericsson  

The attractiveness of specialized Internet of Things networks such as LoRaWAN and Sigfox has been that they allow much lower communication costs, in addition to lower-power sensors and devices, compared to traditional mobile networks.

In fact, cost reduction, often by an order of magnitude, generally is viewed as key to the success of IoT services.

Whether that advantage lasts is the issue, as mobile air interfaces designed to offer low-cost, low-power communications come to market.

LTE-M, which is an abbreviated version of LTE-MTC (or “machine-type communications”), is a part of 3GPP’s release 12 and 13.

The advantage of LTE-MTC for M2M communications is that is a standard LTE network air interface.

In other words, a mobile operator only has to upload new baseband software onto its base stations to turn on LTE-M and won’t have to spend any money on new antennas.

It’s also five times simpler than a category 4 receiver—like that found in user equipment like a cell phone.

LTE-M has a little higher data rate than NB-LTE-M and NB-IoT, but it is able to transmit fairly large chunks of data. Thus, it can be used for applications such as tracking objects, wearables, energy management, utility metering, and city infrastructure.

With modules expected to be priced below $10, LTE-M is expected to improve the economics of IoT for use cases like smart energy meters, industrial IoT sensors, asset trackers, smart city controllers and consumer wearables.

“The first shall be last” often happens in the communications business.

How Much Share Will Skype for Business Take?

source: No Jitter

In many ways, the relative slowness of hosted PBX adoption is a puzzle, given the feature richness and cost savings, compared to premises switch alternatives, in many cases.

A subsidiary question is how well some services, such as Skype for Business, might fare.

Of the 224 respondents to a No Jitter survey that say they are using Skype for Business on-premises, 33 percent said they are using Enterprise Voice as a PBX replacement.

source: No Jitter

Of those 75 respondents, 52 percent estimate that their organizations have replaced at least half of their prior PBX capacity with Skype for Business Enterprise Voice and 63 percent indicated that their organizations will have done so in two years.

Some 17 percent of these respondents report a full replacement of PBX capacity, with 25 percent reporting that they expect to have fully replaced their PBX capacity with Enterprise Voice in two years.

Overall, 61 percent of respondents using Enterprise Voice said they consider it to be "better" or "much better" than the PBX systems replaced or still in use at their organizations.

source: No Jitter

Conversely, 11 percent deemed Skype for Business to be "worse" or "much worse," while 22 percent said Enterprise Voice and PBX systems are about the same in their experience.

Of those respondents whose organizations have already shifted some or all of their UC to Skype for Business in Office 365, many seem to be open to the idea of using Microsoft's cloud-based calling services..

Just shy of 60 percent of 175 respondents said they are already using or have considered using Skype for Business in Office 365 for voice services.

source: No Jitter

New Thinking on Bundles?

For a couple of decades now, the triple-play bundle has been a mainstay of fixed network service provider strategy for coping with greater competition.

Simply, where it might once have been possible to garner up to 80 percent or 95 percent of all potential customers for a particular service, it now is quite common for any single contestant to get 30 percent to 40 percent share.

Under those conditions, selling more products to a smaller number of customers is necessary and rational.

Still, there always are niches in the communications business, especially for smaller providers without the benefits of massive scale.

Some independent Internet service providers might focus on dual-play packages. Some mobile services providers are pure-play mobile suppliers. Some might have wholesale-only business models, selling a single capability to retail partners.

Over time, even some former triple-play services providers might rethink that stance, and focus instead on dual-play communications bundles. Potential new regulations, it is claimed, could undermine the video business model for smaller cable TV operators, for example.

Even AT&T essentially now is emphasizing a different type of triple play (fixed network Internet access plus voice; combined with satellite video entertainment; or mobile voice and Internet plus satellite video) than in the past.

The point is that even when a particular strategy makes sense for scale players, there always are niche strategies for smaller specialists that defy the general rules.

"The Era of Paying for Voice Calls is Ending," Says Reliance Jio CEO

source: ITU

Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani says domestic voice calls will be free forever on the Reliance Jio network. He also and announced a four-month introductory offer of free voice and data services for new customers, starting on September 5, 2016.

“The era of paying for voice calls is ending,” he said.

That, in a nutshell, the fundamental revenue problem faced by legacy service providers in the Internet era: it is tough to compete with providers that “give away what you sell.”

Analysts at Morgan Stanley Research expect Reliance Jio to generate more than $2 billion revenues in 2017 to 2018 period, gaining two percent voice market share and 19 percent market share in mobile data, without overall mobile market share of six percent.

That forecast sees Jio getting  more than 40 million subscribers in a year.

Analysys Mason says mobile data tariffs need to be reduced 75 percent to bring costs in line with developed nation levels.

India’s data tariffs for 1 GB of usage represent 2.6 percent of gross national income per capita

Developed country levels are 0.4 to 0.5 percent GNI per capita.

source: ITU

“Our analysis concludes that a 75 percent cut in data tariffs (average revenue per GB of Rs 57) alone could increase the user base to 645-667 million SIMs, and the level of monthly data usage to around 4.2-4.3 GB per SIM in 2019-20,” said Analysys Mason.

Perhaps nobody expects a 75-percent fall in tariffs over the next couple of years. Longer term, it is hard to bet against such an outcome. Fixed network Internet access prices in the developing world--arguably a much-tougher proposition, still have been falling towards developed country levels, on a percent of GNI basis.

By 2015, average mobile broadband prices corresponded to 5.5 percent of GNI per capita, worldwide. In developing countries, the average was more like seven percent. Of course, mobile Internet access was below one percent in developed countries, as a percentage of GNI per capita.

Further reductions in fixed network costs might be difficult, some data suggests. Since 2013, for example, fixed network costs seem to have grown, not shrunk.

source: ITU