Mobile Web Audience Grew 42% Year over Year

Mobile media now is driving growth in digital media business, underscoring mobile’s role in just about every important trend in Internet access, content consumption and value of the Internet overall.

Mobile web audiences grew 42 percent over the past year, while use of mobile apps grew 21 percent, year over year, comScore says.

Fixed Network Business Case Remains Challenging

No single access platform ever is the “best” or “only” solution for a communications objective. Though mobile widely has become the key enabling platform in much of the world, there are times when satellite or fixed wireless is the only economically-viable option.

Likewise, despite the bandwidth advantages of a fiber-backed fixed network, the business case

is severe, in many cases.

By some estimates, fiber to the home or fiber to the curb has a positive business case in less than 50 percent of instances, and far less than that in the developing world, according to the International Telecommunications Union.

70% of People Globally Will Have Internet Access by 2020, ITU Says

Of an estimated 9.2 billion mobile subscriptions expected to be in service by 2020, 7.7 billion will have mobile Internet access, according to the International Telecommunications Union. At that point, about 70 percent of the world’s population will be using a smartphone.

If those forecasts are correct, then dire warnings about the global digital divide will be a sharply less important reality. We likely still have some ways to go in terms of supplied bandwidth, and there still will be coverage gaps.

In Europe, Higher Capex, Lower Revenue is a Trend

It might not be the case in every market, but in Europe, legacy carrier revenue is down, capital investment is up. Revenue gains are being made by attackers, including some that find they are earning more revenue on less capital investment.

That is not the case for the cable TV, mobile and fixed network service providers, all of whom are seeing increased capital spending. Cable is seeing a one percent increase in revenue, but telcos and mobile service providers are seeing negative four percent to five percent revenue trends.

Linear Video Subscriptions Drop 1%

A slow decrease in linear TV viewing, accompanied by an equally slow increase in mobile viewing are among the findings of the latest Nielsen Total Audience Report, measuring consumer use of various forms of media.

According to Nielsen, the number of homes with linear video subscriptions is down 1.2 percent to 100.4 million, over a one-year period. 

The number of broadband only homes rose 52 percent to 3.3 million from 2.2 million, over the same period.

We should not expect the slow changes to continue forever. At some point, an inflection point will be reached and the balance will tip much faster.

U.S. ISPs, Linear Video Providers Get Higher Satisfaction Ratings

It never has been easy for providers in some industries, including telecommunications or airlines, to earn high marks in consumer satisfaction surveys.

There might be some improvement on the part of fixed network communications providers though, according to the latest J.D. Power surveys. A separate study by the American Customer Satisfaction Index shows some Internet service providers are doing better, some worse.

But linear video subscription services and Internet service providers score at the bottom of industry rankings.

Overall satisfaction with television service providers has increased by 12 points to 723 in 2015 from 711 in 2014 (J.D. Power uses a zero to 1,000 scale).

Satisfaction with network performance and reliability improved 22 points from 2014. This follows a 17-point increase between 2014 and 2013.

The danger of low scores can be illustrated by a couple of facts. Lower potential churn rates are associated with scores of 900 or higher.

About 53 percent of highly-satisfied residential television customers (overall satisfaction scores of 900 or higher) say they “definitely will not” switch providers in the next 12 months.

When scores are below 550, 90 percent of respondents indicate they definitely plan to leave their current provider.

Scores in roughly the same range (700s) were earned by Internet access services as well.

Satisfaction with ISP network performance and reliability improved 16 points in 2014.

Mobile Internet Usage Now About 33% of All Usage

Globally, more people get access to the Internet using a personal computer or tablet, according to Global Web Index. 

But the percentage doing so using a mobile phone is growing steadily, and currently represents usage about half the level of PC or tablet access.

People 16 to 24 are the most-frequent mobile Internet users, spending 3.25 hours per day online on their smartphones, about 43 percent of their total internet time.