3 or 4 for U.S. Mobile Market? Answer Might Still be "4"

The optimal mobile market structure for any national mobile market  remains an open question. Some believe most markets balance consumer welfare and supplier sustainability better with three leading suppliers rather than four, but regulators in many markets continue to believe that four suppliers are necessary for robust competition.

Indeed, most financial analysts likely agree that three suppliers in the U.S. market, for example, would be better for suppliers. Were T-Mobile US and Sprint to combine, three roughly-equal firms would lead the market.

Under that structure, the fierce pricing wars would abate, many believe, while allowing Sprint and T-Mobile US to attain better scale economics. At the same time, many believe, AT&T and Verizon revenues and profits also would improve.

Of course, all such assumptions are just that: assumptions. What has to be considered is that Comcast and Charter Communications also are entering the market. So no matter what happens with mobile service provider consolidation, at least two potentially-powerful new contestants will be entering the market.

Some believe regulators and antitrust officials will have key problems with market share, were Sprint and T-Mobile to try a merger, as they have in the past concluded. Though many believe it will be easier to gain approval under the new administration, the international tests of market concentration are what they are, and antitrust officials still will be using those tools.

In fact, a horizontal merger might not even wind up being the key transaction to be weighed. Vertical mergers or acquisitions (cable plus mobile, for example) are equally likely.

Three Buys UK Broadband for Spectrum Rights

When does it make sense to spend £250 million (US$310 million)--$2,067 per account--to acquire 15,000 money-losing mobile subscribers? When the acquisition also comes with spectrum rights.

UK Broadband is the UK's largest commercial holder of national radio spectrum suitable for 4G mobile services and fixed wireless solutions.  UK Broadband has rights to use 124 MHz of spectrum in international LTE bands 42 and 43 (3.GHz and 3.6GHz), as well as additional spectrum suitable for high-capacity point-to-point and point-to-multipoint services in the 3.9GHz, 28 GHz and 40 GHz bands.

source: Analysys Mason

Nobody Yet "Knows" How IoT Will Create Value

In the early days of any potentially-revolutionary technology, even the most-experienced industry executives might be nearly clueless about the eventual impact. That is worth keeping in mind as internet of things, artificial intelligence and machine learning are applied to a wide range of industries and processes. Right now, we cannot predict the outcome. In most cases, we are not even sure about the strategies that produce the best outcomes.

In the past, executives have disparaged demand for telephones, alternating current, automobiles, television, audio systems, satellites, mobile phones, video on demand or iPhones.

Bill Gates, when he was CEO of Microsoft, missed the importance of the internet. IBM executives once believed the global market for computers was less than a half dozen.

The CEO of DEC believed nobody would want a computer in their home. Gates once believed nobody would need, or use, a 32-bit computing system.

An overwhelming percentage of insurance industry executives believe the internet of things will “revolutionize” the business. They just do not know precisely “how” that will happen.

Those executives believe IoT will allow better risk-based pricing and will change customer behavior in ways that benefit the industry. But it also is fair to note that executives are at such an early stage of IoT application that strategies have not been developed.

At the moment, most seem to believe that better analytics will produce benefits.

Source: Insurance Nexus

Low Power Wide Area Netwoks Using Unlicensed and Licensed Spectrum Will Support 1.4 Billion IoT Devices by 2022

One more sign of the growing role played by unlicensed technologies in “public communications” is the expected use of unlicensed spectrum to support Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) services.

Such LPWA services will play a large part in supporting 1.4 billion Internet of Things (IoT) connections by 2022, according to Machina Research, even as NB-IoT and LTE-M, using licensed spectrum, also contribute.

The GSMA’s Mobile IoT Initiative, which promotes adoption of LPWA technologies, is currently backed by 67 global mobile operators, device makers, chipset, module and infrastructure companies worldwide, GSMA says.

LPWA networks are an emerging, high-growth area of the IoT, designed to support M2M applications that have low data rates, require long battery lives and operate unattended for long periods of time, often in remote locations. They will be used for a wide variety of applications such as industrial asset tracking, safety monitoring, water and gas metering, smart grids, city parking, vending machines and city lighting.

Casa Systems Shows Mobile Access Using Cable Wi-Fi

Casa Systems, a provider of untethered access, demonstrated a virtualized fixed-mobile convergence solution that enables cable service providers to offer mobile services using Wi-Fi access from cable TV plant.

Casa supplies small cell solutions optimized for use by cable operators, and the latest proof of concept demonstrates the viability of using cable homespots and hotspots to support mobile access.

  

Lifeline Internet Access is Not in short Supply in U.S. Market

Some are making a big deal about a Federal Communications Commission decision not to allow nine firms to sell lifeline internet access service. The decision was made largely on procedural grounds. The nine firms are not accused of any shortcomings, but the lifeline program itself has been plagued by waste, fraud and abuse, the FCC says.

At the same time, lifeline service at what many would consider reasonable costs already are provided by all of the largest U.S. fixed network providers.

AT&T lifeline service, depending on a potential customer’s location, offers 10 megabits per second, for $10 per month; 5 megabits per second, for $10 per month; 3 megabits per second, for $5 per month; 1.5 megabits per second, for $5 per month or 768 kilobits per second, for $5 per month.

Lifeline internet access also is sold by Verizon, CenturyLink, Comcast, Cox Communications, Charter Communications, Suddenlink, Frontier Communications and others. Generally speaking, those services sell for about $10 a month.

Will Dumb Pipe Always be the Foundation of the Telco Business Model?

It always is difficult to figure out precisely how tier-one service providers (telcos, cable, others) will reposition revenue streams and services to remain viable in the future, as all legacy revenue streams  decline. The fundamental issue is how far that process can move, beyond “access” services, since that is the fundamental “telco” role in the application ecosystem.

The colloquial way of describing the challenge or dilemma is that telcos and other access providers must “avoid becoming dumb pipes.”

One way or the other, nearly every telco executive would agree with some version of a strategy that involves “moving up the stack” in terms of value and applications, as well as moving into new lines of business.

Left unsaid is the fact that “dumb pipe” (access) has to remain the foundation of the business--whatever other new businesses or apps can be created--because access is the particular part of the ecosystem telcos are in.

To be sure, a telco might divest its whole access business (sell it) and use the proceeds to become another type of company, in another part of the ecosystem. In a sense, Verizon has been divesting fixed network assets to support its mobile segment. And many other firms are harvesting earnings from traditional access businesses to jumpstart new content or app businesses.

On a broad level, that same strategy will be used by every tier-one telco hoping to create new roles in the internet of things ecosystem. Up to this point, for most service providers, smartphones have enabled much of the growth of value-added services.

But access will “always” be the foundation of any business whose fundamental role in the applications ecosystem is, precisely, “access” and transport.

Even if service providers sell unified communications services, hosting services or IoT communications, those services remain partly or wholly anchored in the “access” function

source: Wireless Intelligence

source: Telco 2.0

In principle, a former telco might even contemplate leaving the telecom business altogether.

SK Telecom, for example, says “our new CEO firmly believes that SK Telecom’s goal is to secure the leadership as the new ICT as the leader in the new ICT ecosystem within the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” according to Keun-Joo Hwang, SK Telecom CFO and EVP.

IPTV and internet access are growth areas, but fundamentally are “access” businesses. The big issue is what other new access-related businesses can be created or fostered, assuming the specific role of an access provider in the internet and app ecosystem is, in fact, access.