New Platforms Will Help, But Rural-Urban Divide Still Will Exist

Though some will criticize the changes, a new Federal Communications Commission look at where internet access was in 2018 suggests coverage and speeds available to underserved citizens is improving.

Such changes never will be fast enough to satisfy some, and it might never be possible to completely eliminate the urban-rural difference in number of suppliers, typical speeds or absolute speed. Nor is it possible to dismiss progress.

From December 2016 to December 2018, the number of U.S. residents without any options for at least 250/25 Mbps fixed terrestrial broadband service dropped by 74 percent, from 181.7 million to 47 million, the FCC notes.

The number of residents with no options for at least 25/3 Mbps fixed terrestrial broadband service fell by 30 percent, from 26.1 million to 18.3 million.  

The data also showed an increase in competition from December 2016 to December 2018, with the number of residents  enjoying more than two options for 25/3 Mbps fixed terrestrial broadband service increasing by 52 percent, from 45.9 million to 69.8 million.  

Moreover, the number of rural residents with two or more options for 25/3 Mbps fixed terrestrial broadband service increased by 52 percent, from 14.4 million to 22 million.  

New platforms are coming, though, including low earth orbit satellite constellations, fixed wireless, and much more unlicensed and shared spectrum. 

The new HAPS Alliance--including SoftBank’s HAPS Mobile, Alphabet's Loon, AeroVironment, Airbus Defence and Space, Bharti Airtel, China Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Nokia SoftBank and Telefónica--aims to promote the use of high altitude vehicles for internet access. 

Considered in light of the emergence of low earth orbit satellite constellations, 5G fixed wireless and use of growing amounts of unlicensed and shared spectrum, HAPs shows growing potential use of wireless access platforms for internet access, especially in areas where traditional platforms cannot generate a reasonable financial return. 

Note the involvement of major app developers, mobile service providers, traditional telecom infrastructure providers and aerospace firms. As with the Telecom InfraProject, new and incumbent entities are working together to reduce the costs of communications infrastructure.  

Among the immediate activities is “global harmonization of HAPS spectrum, including the adoption, improvement and acceleration of global spectrum standardization for High Altitude IMT Base Stations within the International Telecommunications Union (ITU),” the group says. 

Some early indications are that--as always in the past--the usable bandwidth of HAPs will be substantially less than available on terrestrial networks. Some early work by the International Telecommunications Union suggests data rates per user will depend on the number of simultaneous users.

source: ITU

A single HAPs platform might have a total throughput of less than 5 Gbps, supporting 2,000 simultaneous users, or perhaps 30 Gbps supporting 12,800 simultaneous users. 

That works out to about 2.38 Mbps per user, when there are 2,000 simultaneous users. HAPs units transmitting over wider areas might only be able to support a couple hundred kilobits per second when 12,800 simultaneous users are active

Some early suggestions for dedicated HAPS bandwidth use the 6.4 GHz to 6.6 GHz band. In the millimeter ranges a few different bands might be used, including 28 GHz, 31 GHz, 47 GHz or 48 GHz. 

source: ITU

Some bandwidth always is preferable to no bandwidth, and that is the primary appeal of the emergence untethered access platforms. In perhaps a minority of cases, untethered bandwidth might approach that of cabled network alternatives. That might occur most often when millimeter wave spectrum is used in a small cell deployment to boost capacity in a dense user, urban location. 

Most of the time, untethered bandwidth supplied by some wireless platform will provide access where it is not otherwise possible, but also not at speeds that approach cabled network performance. 

One way of illustrating the dramatic impact of coming shared spectrum, unlicensed and millimeter wave spectrum is compare those new sources with all existing mobile spectrum. 

source: FCC

"Rural Areas Underserved" is Evergreen, but Might Not Always be a Problem

“Rural areas underserved by broadband networks” is an evergreen story: it never goes away. No matter how much improvement there is in the coverage, speed of networks or cost, the continual network improvements in urban areas always will mean there is a gap between rural and urban networks. 

Consider this graph of user density in the United Kingdom, which shows that 90 percent of U.K. users live on just 40 percent of the land area, with 60 percent of people living on just 10 percent of the land surface. Since terrestrial cabled network cost is directly proportional to density, networks will cost least where density is highest, most where density is lowest. 

source: Raconteur

Population density is even more skewed in the U.S. market, where about 63 percent of people live on just 3.5 percent of the land area, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Most of the access network cost problem lies in the last couple of percent of U.S. locations. 

The good news might be that the amount of bandwidth available in rural areas might soon be reasonable enough to support customer experience for virtually all apps, even if a gap with urban areas persists. The other issue is demand. Even when it is available, many rural residents do not see the need for broadband or faster internet speeds.

A survey of 194 small telcos that are members of the NTCA rural broadband association is instructive. You might be surprised to learn that 23 percent of all connections made available by these rural service providers in 2018 offered at least a 1,000-Mbps connection. 

Another 34 percent of connections offer speeds from 100 Mbps to about 999 Mbps. In other words, 57 percent of available connections operate at 100 Mbps or faster.

As typically is the case, that does not mean most customers buy the fastest services. They do not. Actual buying clusters in the range between 4 Mbps and 100 Mbps minimums.

Maybe 3 Mobile Service Providers Really are Enough to Produce Consumer Welfare Gains

A study by GSMA Intelligence might be useful, in terms of looking at firm sustainability and competition, after the merger or T-Mobile US and Sprint. A key argument in the debate over the merger of T-Mobile US and Sprint was its impact on competition and consumer welfare (prices being the measure). 

On one hand, some proponents argued that the merger would allow T-Mobile to compete and invest on more-equal terms with AT&T and Verizon.

Opponents argued that consumer welfare would essentially suffer, as the lessened competition would lead to less pricing pressure. It might be noted that virtually every equity analyst I have encountered believed the merger would lead to less pricing pressure in the U.S. mobile market. 

But the GSMA Intelligence data are mixed. Since 2013, in European markets, average mobile internet prices per megabyte have been the same, in both four-provider and three-provider markets. 

In other words, it is not clear that three-provider markets lead to higher prices, or that four-provider markets lead to lower prices. Also, it is not clear that competition, per se, has had the largest impact on falling prices. The GSMA study shows that per-megabyte prices were higher in the four-provider countries to begin with. In 2012, the three-provider markets had lower per-megabyte prices. 

source: GSMA Intelligence

The possibility therefore exists that something other than the number of competitors accounts for average prices. 

Likewise, average revenue per user fell at nearly the same amounts between 2011 and 2018, whether there were three or four competitors. 

source: GSMA Intelligence

Also, there seems to be very little difference between bandwidth increases in markets lead by three or four contestants. 

source: GSMA Intelligence

The GSMA Intelligence study suggests it is likely that profit margins will be higher for the three remaining national leaders, as profit margins in European “three-provider” markets have been consistently higher than in “four-provider” markets. That is what one would expect. 

Perhaps some of these same trends will be seen in the U.S. market, once the T-Mobile merger with Sprint has time to be consolidated.

Huge Market Share Loss for Incumbents is the Actual Intent of Deregulation

Of all changes--large and small--that have occurred in the telecom business since deregulation and the emergence of the internet, none are perhaps more striking than the lost market share incumbents have experienced. And, to be sure, that is the expected outcome of telecom deregulation.

Looking only at internet access, and only at the U.S. market, consider that incumbent telcos have fractional market share in the fixed network segment of the business. For 20 years, incumbent telcos have steadily lost market share to cable companies. AT&T and Verizon, for example, have only about 23 percent share, according to Mobile Experts. 

source: Mobile Experts

According to Leichtman Research, cable companies have 67 percent of the installed base, telcos about 33 percent share. And, paradoxically perhaps, the business case for telcos to deploy additional fiber to the home gets more challenging, even as the cost of building FTTH arguably has fallen. 

The reason is that where FTTH builds by telcos could rely on substantial potential from a combination of voice, video entertainment and internet access, the dwindling demand for fixed network voice and linear video entertainment means the revenue case increasingly is built on internet access share gains. 

Fixed network voice lines, for example, fell by half between 2000 and 2020, even as households grew 24 percent and employee counts grew 22 percent, both of which represent increased demand for communication services, if not wired voice in particular. 

source: US Telecom

Demand for linear video services also is diminishing, though slowly. The bigger issue arguably is profit on such services, rather than gross revenue. Where video cost of goods once was on the order of 48 percent to 50 percent for the largest service providers, cost of goods in 2019 is probably closer to 60 percent of gross revenue. 

If all other direct costs (marketing, operations) are only 10 percent of revenue, that implies gross margins of up to 40 percent in the past, now perhaps 30 percent or lower. 

Small telcos and cable TV companies might have next to zero or negative margins on linear video in 2020. 

In the mobile segment of the business, incumbents still rule the day. But the cable companies, Dish Network and other potential competitors are coming.

For 5G, Haste Makes Waste

“Slow is smooth; smooth is fast,” special operations personnel always say. And that is not a new thought. The Latin phrase festina lente might be translatd as "hurry slowly" or "hasten slowly."

Festina lente suggests that trying to do things too fast often means people and organizations waste time because they go back to correct mistakes. "Haste makes waste," in other words. 

In other words, the fastest way of accomplishing something is to work carefully and methodically. It still works. Consider the ways 5G is being built.

You might assume, given all the hype about 5G, and the rival marketing claims, that mobile operators are throwing money at network construction in a mad rush to build out full networks as quickly as possible.

Actually, operators seem to be proceeding rationally, deliberately and at a measured pace, with significant results.

Just a few years ago, projections of 5G infrastructure cost were so high that many argued the networks could not be built. In fact, some speculated that 5G networks would cost 10 times that of 4G.  Others only expected 5G costs to double or triple. 

Capital investment levels, though, seem not to be skyrocketing, even as 5G is built. In fact, there is growing evidence that 5G can be built within existing capex budgets. 

There are several reasons. First, mobile operators are being deliberate in their spending and build rates. Also, capital expense is shifted from 4G to 5G, as always happens when a next-generation network is under construction. 

Also, network architects, working with better radios, have found that 5G mid-band signal coverage is almost identical to that of 4G, meaning less physical infrastructure actually turns out to be necessary. Also, low-band spectrum is being used for 5G rollouts, limiting capacity growth, but also requiring fewer new tower or radio sites and backhaul construction.

Better technology, allowing lower cost builds, also is at work. 

But even at the height of concern, some forecasts suggested reasonable levels of spending on 5G optical fiber backhaul. 

source: CIR

So the worst fears about 5G infrastructure cost have not been realized. In substantial part, that is because mobile executives are rational about 5G revenue gains, which will be slight, initially. The business model therefore requires a deliberate approach to investment, all hype aside. 

source: McKinsey

Some might say the early alarm was based to a too-literal extrapolation from past experience with macrocell infrastructure. Analysts basically took the legacy costs and inflated by the expected number of new cell sites. That has proven to be incorrect. 

A higher degree of infrastructure reuse has proven possible. Deployment is being carefully phased. Better technology means capex demands are less than expected. Perhaps most important, operators are evaluating investment in light of expected financial returns, and behaving accordingly. -

How Mobility Drives Industry Growth and Value

With the caveat that the data is about 15 years old, the evolution of end user nodes on communications networks is clear enough. While fixed nodes represent most of the actual data consumption, mobile nodes increasingly drive the subscriptions and user base. 

In this illustration, the blue and purple  lines show fixed network broadband lines. The light blue line shows cable TV broadband lines. 

The lines in yellow show total telco lines of any type. The red lines show mobility customers. 

source: International Cablemakers Federation

More recent data through 2012 shows the trends in perhaps clearer perspective. By 2012, fixed line teledensity (lines as a percent of population) remained virtually flat and in the very-low single digits.

Mobile teledensity had climbed up to a bit below 70 percent overall, and hit 40 percent even in rural areas. 

source: ITU

Looking at global data to 2019, mobile internet users had the highest growth rate, while mobile subscriptions flattened. Fixed broadband connections grew slowly, while use of traditional voice lines (narrowband) continued to dip slightly. 

source: ITU

And while each country’s development is different in some ways, the general pattern also is clear. Mobile adoption has been faster than fixed network service adoption. Historically, on average, it has taken any specific country up to 50 years to reach adoption levels near 50 percent. 

In the mobile era, it often takes less than 20 years to reach 50 percent adoption. So the difference between the “best” growth rates and “average” growth rates is mostly dependent on whether we look at mobile services or fixed services. 

source: ITU

Is Mobile Internet Access "More Valuable" than Fixed?

Looking only at the cost per bit, one might conclude (incorrectly, perhaps) that mobile data access is deemed more valuable than fixed network access. One might also argue that the value of mobile bits is in some sense "greater" than fixed access precisely because it represents "access at any time, anyplace" instead of "at one place."

It is somewhat impressionistic, but mobile service adoption rates do suggest there is something consumers consider quite valuable. Consider adoption rates: mobile got adopted explosively, compared to fixed network service. That suggests a clear and strong sense of value on the part of consumers.

source: Our World in Data

It also is suggestive that mobile cost per bit has been 10 times higher than that of fixed access.

On the other hand, most surveys show relatively balanced levels of data consumption--mobile or fixed--on a global basis. Some consumption is mobile-only; some is fixed-only.

About half of consumption is untethered devices using fixed network resources (Wi-Fi in particular). 

source: Cisco

Nor is it easy to compare the value of fixed access compared to mobile access. Mobile access costs more, per bit, but consumption also is far less than on a fixed network. Fixed network consumption costs less per bit, but consumption levels are higher than on a mobile network.

Basically, 80 percent of device traffic demand is from fixed networks, though roughly half of all device traffic demand is from mobile devices. In part, that might be because mobile users know they can save money by offloading to Wi-Fi.

It is difficult to say how much that disparity is driven by perceptions of value and how much from the sheer disparity in transmission network bandwidth. Mobile bandwidth is highly restricted by the amount of spectrum available for mobile networks to use. Cabled networks have virtually unrestricted capacity upside.

Still, to the extent that value and price are directly related, mobile access might be deemed to be more valuable than fixed bandwidth, per-bit, when consumed "on the go," where fixed connections are not possible. The high use of Wi-Fi as a mobile network offload mechanism speaks to the cost differences between mobile and fixed networks.

The value of data access is not necessarily directly proportional to the volume of data consumed. A relatively small amount of data used for a navigation app or social network might have high value, while a large amount of data consumed by a video might have relatively lower value.

So the value of mobile internet access is not directly related to the volume of consumed bits.

Some might argue that “most” consumers will have little need for internet access on their phones. Many of us would strongly disagree with that notion. Some even have argued that only about 35 percent of phone users would be willing to pay for internet access on their devices. 

source: Mobile Opportunity

It is safe to say many of us believe a standard Bell curve of demand is the more likely outcome, where nearly every user buys some mobile data access. 

source: Mobile Opportunity

All internet access seems to be deemed valuable by consumers. It also is possible to argue that mobile access "anywhere" continues to enjoy a cost premium compared to fixed network access, as important as that is.