BCG’s short note identifies eight trends that it claims are shaping the telecom industry, as well as competitive threats from companies as diverse as Best Buy, Google and Macquarie Infrastructure Group. It goes on to outline several strategic options to meet these challenges.
The Future of Telecommunications: As Wireless Earnings Wane, Carriers Confront Hard Choices
Monitor GBN and Cisco’s report presents several scenarios for the development of the Internet “… as a contribution to ongoing discussions…”, focussing on users’ experiences of Internet based services. These scenarios are used to suggest the new business models and policy challenges that may arise in the next 15 years.
DotEcon has reviewed the auctions for 2.6 GHz spectrum, which is to be used for 4G services, comparing the different auction methods used and the results. The paper includes tables comparing total revenues and revenues per MHz per pop.
ECTA’s Regulatory Scorecard for 2009, published in June, benchmarks the telecoms regulatory framework in 22 EU countries. ECTA notes that competitive countries, where new entrants have non-discriminatory access to bottleneck infrastructure at fair prices, have lower retail prices resulting in high broadband usage, contrasting this with other countries where new entrants face more difficult market conditions and which lag behind EU average on broadband take-up.
Ernst & Young’s annual risk report for telecoms operators, published in June, highlights the top ten risks facing the industry according EY’s team. Top again is “losing ownership of the client” followed by “failure to maximise customer value”. The report also includes a further four “below the radar” risks, including green and health issues.
The European Commission’s 15th progress report, published in May, reviews progress in mobile, broadband and fixed telephony services across all EU countries, as well as in key regulatory issues. The overall message is that while overall revenues are static, cost cutting by operators is maintaining profitability. Declining revenues in voice services, both fixed and mobile, are compensated by increased revenues for data services. The report, and the associated country chapters, contain a wealth of data on service usage and revenues.
Progress Report on the Single European Electronic Communications Market
For their recent report VisionMobile surveyed mobile app developers to understand their attitudes and expectations. While app developers’ choices of platform are principally driven by market share, the report highlights the phenomenon of “mindshare migration”. Thus over 20% of Symbian developers sell through iPhone and Android stores, while over half of Windows developers are believed to be carrying iPhones! The report includes data on installed bases, apps available by platform, channels favoured by developers etc.
The UMTS Forum’s new white paper “Recognising the Promise of Mobile Broadband” highlights the main challenge faced by mobile operators – the forecast exponential growth in mobile data usage. (For example Cisco’s VNI projects over 100% annual growth rate up to 2014). The paper discusses responses to this challenge, including new business models and cost reduction, as well as looking forward to the development of higher bandwidth technologies and the requirement for further spectrum.
The FCC’s Omnibus Broadband Inititiative (OBI) has just published a interesting paper on broadband usage and performance. It analyses the differences between advertised and actual speeds, noting that often the perceived discrepancies are due to network congestion rather than physical limitations of the customers’ connections. The paper also includes data on consumer usage of broadband. While it is not surprising that average data usage increases roughly in proportion to access speed, the difference between the mean monthly usage (9.2GB) and the median usage (1.7GB) is less obvious. Consumption of broadband is highly skewed: some users use over 1000GB per month with 1% of users responsible for 25% of total usage.
Ofcom has just published its annual report on UK communications markets. The report covers all media (TV, radio, broadband, mobile and fixed telecoms) for each of the UK nations and includes a wealth of data and comment. It’s difficult to summarise a document where even the key points occupy 6 pages, so this blog entry will just highlight telecoms revenues. While penetration and use of telecom services, particularly mobile data, increased, overall revenues declined for fixed, internet access and mobile services. The report notes that retail telecom revenues fell to £30.4bn, the lowest figure since 2006 and the first decline since Ofcom’s predecessor Oftel began gathering data in the 1990s.
ITU Regulatory Newslog FT Company News – Telecoms