Revenue Per Bit Remains the Biggest ISP Problem

For transport and access service providers, video is a problem and a curse. Video has the absolute lowest revenue per bit, and therefore potential profit per bit, of any traffic type.

Video also dominates data volume on global networks, but has revenue per bit perhaps two orders of magnitude (100 times) less than voice, for example.

Those reductions in price per unit sold would be nearly catastrophic in any business, and tell you most of what you would need to know about the direction of network capital and operating costs to achieve sustainability.

At the same time, those catastrophically-lower revenue per bit measures also tell you why surviving tier-one service providers must (not “should”) find big, new revenue sources.

Text messaging has in the past had the highest revenue per bit, followed by voice services. More recently, as text messaging prices have collapsed, voice probably has the highest revenue per bit.

Video always has had low revenue per bit, in large part because, as a media type, it requires so much bandwidth, while revenue is capped by consumer willingness to pay. Assume the average TV viewer has the screen turned on for five hours a day.

That works out to 150 hours a month. Assume an hour of streaming (or broadcasting, in the analog world) consumes about one gigabyte per hour. That represents, for one person, consumption of perhaps 150 Gbytes. Assume overall household consumption of 200 Gbytes, and a monthly data cost of $50 per month.

That suggests a cost--to watch 150 hours of video--of about 33 cents per gigabyte. Assume a mobile or fixed line account represents about 350 minutes. Assume the monthly recurring cost of having voice features on a mobile phone is about $20.

Assume data consumption for 350 minutes (5.8 hours a month) is about 21 Mbytes per hour, or roughly 122 Mbytes per month. That implies a cost of roughly $164 per gigabyte.

In other words, video revenue for the access provider is perhaps 33 cents per gigabyte, while voice generates perhaps $164 per gigabyte. These days, unlimited domestic texting is often a feature, not a revenue driver, generating zero revenue per gigabyte.

Since video now is the application that now drives global network traffic, you can understand the need to reduce cost per bit in the network, and in all network-related operations, to sustain the networks, if revenue per bit is declining.  

As a corollary, and though it often is a criticized move, the way entertainment video now is created and distributed shows the imperative of moving beyond “distribution” as the video entertainment role.

Consider the way internet application providers now operate. Big app providers, using the internet, can simultaneously function as vertically-integrated suppliers, reaping economies across multiple parts of the value chain. Netflix, for example, is a content owner and creator.

Netflix also is a producer, the equivalent of a studio or channel. And Netflix also acts as its own distribution, the equivalent of a linear video service provider.

Those economics are necessary in a business where low-price bits drive network transmission and access economics.

source: Ericsson

S&P 500 "Telecom" Index Will Add Content Firms

In a move that illustrates the changes in the “communications” business, the telecommunications segment of the Standard and Poors 500 index will be recreated, including advertising, broadcasting, publishing, movie and entertainment as well as app firms supplying entertainment.

The change will happen in September 2018, with the firms to be added to the index announced in January 2018.

Several developments drive the change. First, the universe of U.S. telecom firms had essentially dwindled to just AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink.

Also, the changes will add numerous higher-growth segments to the indices, which have been low-growth and therefore relatively less attractive to investors.

Some might also say the changes also reflect the importance of media, content and video businesses to the “telecom” industry. Those revenue sources are important, for a growing number of  tier-one service providers, to add new revenue drivers with higher margins, to fuel revenue growth and replace lost voice and messaging revenues.

source: Ali Saghaeian

What, and How Much, Should AT&T Do About its Access Network Investments?

At least some might point to stock performance of T-Mobile US, compare that to AT&T, and draw the conclusion that AT&T would be better off putting its capital into network upgrades, not content acquisitions.

The "problem" with such suggestions is that they are mistaken. AT&T does not have a gap to close with respect to its mobile network performance, versus T-Mobile US.

Perhaps an argument might be made that AT&T should further accelerate the moves it already is making to boost its 4G network, and create 5G networks. But AT&T is among the firms most active in doing so, and if there are such criticisms, one rarely hears them expressed.

To the extent there is a clear issue, it is the fixed network, and the issue there is market share with respect to cable TV firms and independent ISPs, not T-Mobile US.

Arguing that AT&T should focus on its "access" assets, rather than new revenue sources, mistakes a growth strategy based on taking market share with a strategy based on entering or creating new markets. Even if markets are not growing, attacking firms can grow simply by taking market share.

That is what cable TV companies have done in business service markets, voice services and internet access, for example. Growing by taking share was not possible for AT&T and Verizon, which already were the market share leaders in those markets.

That is germane when looking at T-Mobile US strategy, compared to that of AT&T or Verizon.

For starters, T-Mobile US--with no fixed network footprint--has only one avenue for growth: taking market share from other mobile service providers, something it has done.

And, in a zero-sum U.S. mobile market, T-Mobile US, with market share of about 15 percent, has room to grow at the expense of the other service providers, until some future time when it will be acquired or merged with another sizable firm.

In fact, should current predictions about the 5G era prove correct, T-Mobile US and Sprint might well require major fixed network assets to support small cell networks.

The point is that T-Mobile US has limitations and opportunities in its core business that are quite different from those of AT&T. Neither Verizon nor AT&T has seen much share change over the last decade.

So what makes sense--and is doable--for T-Mobile US is not necessarily sensible--or doable--for AT&T or Verizon.

Furthermore, it is by no means clear how much upside actually exists in the fixed network internet access area, for AT&T. It is a strategic product, to be sure. AT&T has to boost its capabilities, by moving to gigabit access, and is doing so, where it believes it has a market opportunity.

But AT&T, for the most part, has not been losing market share to cable over the past few years. Most of the share losses one can identify are coming from other telcos (rural and independent telcos). To be sure, AT&T has not taken much share, either.

The business issue is how much to invest in a business--beyond what is necessary to hold market share--that has largely reached maturity.

As voice and messaging already have entered the declining part of their product life cycles, so too internet access and mobility itself have reached near saturation in the U.S. market. That means finding brand new sources of revenue growth beyond the legacy core.

That is not to say AT&T or Verizon can afford to neglect upgrades of their consumer internet access capabilities. But it would also be incorrect to argue that such upgrades can drive overall revenues over a decade’s time.

One might argue that U.S. mobile internet access revenue will grow. It is harder to make the argument that fixed network revenue will do much, based on past experience.

source: PwC

Many observers were critical of AT&T for buying DirecTV, and are critical of AT&T’s effort to buy Time Warner. Some of the criticisms are similar to complaints made when AT&T was considering the purchase of DirecTV.

Capital should instead have been investing in the core fixed line network, instead, many argued when AT&T was considering the acquisition of DirecTV.

Now the issue is whether AT&T should make access investments in place of buying Time Warner.

But it is not clear how much upside exists for AT&T, in terms of fixed network internet access revenue. You might argue that the best case for AT&T, for a massive upgrade of its consumer access network, is about 10 percent upside in terms of consumer market share.

That is by no means insignificant, depending on the assumptions one makes about the cost of the upgrades. Still, given that as important as it is, fixed network internet access now is a mature business, there are limits to how much capital a telco “ought” to invest, compared to deploying capital elsewhere.

Realistically, a major telco has to expect it will, under the best of circumstances, and in a two-provider market, split share with a competent and motivated cable TV provider. If cable now has about 60 percent share, and AT&T about 40 percent share, that implies a sort of share ceiling of 50 percent. That is one driver of revenue. The other is revenue per account.

But typical account revenues have not risen as much as one might expect, given consumer shifts to higher-speed services that tend to cost more.

Basically, internet access prices in the developed world have tended to move roughly in line with growth in gross domestic product, and are flat to declining in terms of spending as a percentage of gross national income per person, according to the International Telecommunications Union.  

source: PwC

Though some believe there is much-more account revenue upside, experience so far suggests prices will be hard to boost, in the fixed network segment. Increasing competition from third parties is one reason. A shift to mobile access is another issue. Finally, consumers will only spend so much on communications services in general.

AT&T is a firm with many big decisions to make, and none of them are especially easy. Where to deploy capital for revenue growth is a prime example.

Selective Internet "Fast Lanes" Might be Close to Impossible to Create

"Internet fast lanes" have been the big reason many supported strong forms of network neutrality. But it now appears that creation of such "for fee" fast lanes will be next to impossible, in the sense of specific business deals between specific app firms and specific internet service providers.

In other words, the end of common carrier regulation of internet access service will not create fruitful opportunity, on the part of ISPs, to create such "fast lanes," even if they wish to do so. The reason is technology change, as so often is the case.

Consider the simple matter of traffic encryption. To selectively prioritize traffic, an ISP would need some way to identify the packets or partners whose traffic is supposed to be selectively handled. Encryption is a problem, in that regard, one might argue.

Nearly all traffic on ISP networks is encrypted. Under such conditions, it is not clear how selective QoS mechanisms could be applied. ISPs simply will have no way of knowing what traffic is moving, or who the owners are.

And that would seem to be a requirement for any packet handling protocols intended to provide expedited handling.

By about 2020, estimates Openwave Mobility, fully 80 percent of all internet traffic will be encrypted. In 2017, more than 70 percent of all traffic is encrypted.

The key point is that selective optimization of packets will be virtually impossible. ISPs probably can optimize all traffic over their networks, but probably cannot selectively optimize.

So despite the fears (fanciful and legitimate) expressed about the “end of network neutrality” in the repeal of common carrier (Title II) regulation of internet access, it seems highly unlikely that feared “quality of service” service tiers which could be created by internet service providers will be major issues.

Media and Content Industry Regulation Will Have to Change, as Did Regulation of VoIP

Does it make sense to regulate some suppliers of the exact same products, sold to the exact same customers, in different ways?

Over the last several decades,  new technology has erased barriers between formerly-separate industries, complicating regulatory tasks, spurring cross-industry mergers and rearranging business models.

Internet voice used to be regulated differently from common carrier voice. Internet video is regulated differently from linear video; internet messaging is treated differently than common carrier messaging. Cable TV firms, telcos and big application providers are regulated under different rules when supplying similar or identical products.

Content creators and packagers have been regulated differently from content distributors. But now content creation and delivery are not separate.

Typically, regulators are “behind the times” when these changes happen, essentially making decisions which look in the rear view mirror, instead of out the windshield. It is a common problem.

Generals often are derided for “preparing to fight the last war,” for example. So it might be worthwhile noting that the old distinctions between content production, content aggregation and content distribution have fundamentally changed.

All that matters because, in the past, there have been legal  barriers between those functions. With the blurring of former roles, distribution and content production have become parts of a single process and value chain.

Consider only content creation and distribution as practiced by Facebook and other application providers. In the clearest of ways, Facebook creates its own content and acts as its own distribution network. In fact, there is no way to separate those roles.

Facebook now has two billion monthly active users. YouTube has 1.5 billion monthly users. The point is that the leading app providers have numerous advantages over “old media” providers.

Traditional internet service providers with content operations are far smaller, and rarely global. The leading app providers are global. And though the metric for Facebook is active users, while the metrics for AT&T tend to be “subscribers,” each of those metrics is a proxy for “audience.”

AT&T has less than 150 million U.S. mobile accounts, 46.6 million video accounts and less than 16 million internet accounts in service. Facebook has more than two billion monthly users. YouTube gets 1.5 billion monthly viewers.

Netflix has more than 100 million video accounts, growing globally at about a 41-percent annual rate. Linear video, meanwhile, is declining.

For a major app providers, the incremental cost to create the next unit of content and the cost to distribute that content, are negligible. Marginal cost is quite low. That tends not be true for a traditional provider (Time Warner or AT&T, for example).

Even at scale, adding the next unit of an account, or creating the next unit of content, is expensive, in comparison to Facebook, when undertaken by AT&T or Time Warner.

source: TechCrunch

Telco video subscribers number in the tens of millions, at best. And though telco content revenues arguably are substantially higher than similar revenues earned by the likes of Facebook and Google, that clearly will change.

And growth has implications for valuation. The market values growth, which is why equity valuations of major app firms are much higher than valuations of internet service providers.

source: IDATE

source: GSMA

The point is simply that industry boundaries are being erased. Content production or aggregation now is also embedded with distribution. So old line of business rules are increasingly irrelevant.

And that is a larger problem across the communications and media industries. These days, even if there are distinct regulatory environments for cable TV and telco firms, they serve the same markets and customers.

And though regulatory environments similarly are distinct in treatment of application providers and other content producers and distributors, those rules are growing incongruous. Increasingly, firms competing in the same business are regulated distinctly.

The problem is that, eventually, the asymmetry of the rules--in conjunction with disparate business outcomes-- will have to be addressed.

Regulators always have two fundamental avenues: applying the most-stringent sets of rules on all providers, or applying the least-stringent rules on all providers. Some will argue that in rapidly-evolving markets, less stringent rules for all make more sense, at least until some semblance of stability is reached.

It goes without saying that clear commercial interests also are centrally involved. Some will see business advantage if competitors are regulated more strictly. Others might prefer less regulation for virtually all providers, to let the restructuring play out.

Either way, the old distinctions are losing relevance, when content creation and delivery are unity parts of the value chain, and not separable.

Content Creation, Aggregation, Distribution No Longer are Separate Roles

Once upon a time, there was a clear distinction between content creation; content aggregation and content distribution. Today, the roles are blurring.

In the past, there were laws prohibiting film studies from owning movie theaters, for example. Today, the rules are less stringent, but there are clear limitations on the amount of ownership allowed across the value chain.

The major broadcast networks who assemble content are limited in terms of the number of local TV outlets they can own, for example.

The “old media” thinking was that walls had to be erected between content packagers and content distributors. As a corollary, there were rules about mandatory licensing of content to distributors (“must carry” rules for cable TV, for example).

“New media” breaks all those old rules about separating content creation; content aggregation and content distribution.

That is not to imply or suggest that “more regulation” of the new leaders is needed. Business and industry models are changing, and that evolution is not finished. The point is simply that digital models are quite different than analog models, and that the roles are very hard, perhaps impossible, to separate clearly.

Consider Facebook, Google, Netflix and other firms whose business models increasingly have content components.

Ignore for the moment that modern content distributors do not need to build or own networks, as did “analog era” distributors (TV stations, radio stations, satellite video providers, cable TV distributors, movie theaters, video rental stores).

Look only that the new “identity” or “unity” of content creation and content distribution.

Facebook, Google and others are both content “creators” or “aggregators” as well as content distributors, on a global scale. That is one reason scale suddenly has become an imperative in the content aggregation and content distribution segments of the internet value chain.

source: Professor Jeffrey Funk

source: Professor Jeffrey Funk

The point is that “distribution” and “content creation and aggregation” now are parts of a single process, parts of the operations of firms. Netflix now directly funds content creation; assembles packages of content and delivers that content.

It has direct relationships with content creators, content aggregators (networks) and with end user customers who consume that content. It is studio, network and distributor, all in one. The same can be said of Amazon Prime, Facebook or Google.

The key change is the fusion of the content creation, aggregation and distribution roles.

U.S. FCC Will Vote to Remove Common Carrier Regulations on Internet Access in December 2017

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will vote on Dec. 14, 2017 to remove common carrier regulations from internet access services.

The move is called an attack on network neutrality, but the decision is more complicated than many claim.

In many clear ways, Title II common carrier regulation is a separate issue from network neutrality, which some believe should include a prohibition on any quality of service mechanisms for consumer internet access (no “fast lanes”).

Common carrier regulation is more directly concerned with price regulation, terms and conditions of service, not “network neutrality” in a direct sense.

In a formal sense, the original classification of internet access services as a common carrier service applied a utility-style framework on internet access services that always before had been regulated as “data services.”

One practical result was that consumer welfare issues moved from the purview of the Federal Trade Commission to the FCC itself.

Though commonly referred to as a “network neutrality” remedy, many would argue the FCC still retains the authority to maintain openness, such as ensuring that consumers have access to all lawful internet applications.

Beyond that core position, observers disagree about what other stipulations are required to maintain a climate conducive both to innovation and investment. A common position has been that “network neutrality” should extend beyond “no blocking of lawful apps” to other measures such as prohibiting any quality of service mechanisms (so-called “fast lanes” where latency or bandwidth or both can be prioritized for applications that benefit from such protections at times of network congestion).

The argument always is nuanced. As many will attest, content delivery services and direct interconnections already are ways some networks and app providers ensure quality of service advantages for themselves.

Beyond that, though there has been fear about creation of new “QoS” services, not even all who support the lawful right to create such QoS-ensured services are sure they make business sense.  

Even the repeal of common carrier regulation does not, in that sense, have direct implications for network neutrality, in its “weak” form of “no blocking of lawful apps.” Nor does the change in framework necessarily change prospects for QoS-guaranteed services.

Most such services--which are lawful for business internet access services--make clearest sense for managed services where latency clearly matters. But it is by no means clear that consumer video services or voice have present performance issues that QoS makes sense for customers or app providers, beyond the measures app providers or ISPs already pay for (content delivery services or direct interconnection or peering).

And if anti-competitive practices were to arise, mechanisms already exist to deal with predatory behavior. Were common carrier regulation overturned, the Federal Trade Com