Have you considered how mobile broadband prices will develop
| -and how that will affect the industry? During recent years, the fixed line broadband market (DSL, Fibre and Coax) has been experiencing downward spiralling prices – on a market with a relatively high penetration. The downward spiralling prices have only been compensated by the constantly increasing bandwidth that is giving the end user faster speeds for the same price, but on most markets this has not resulted in any increase of the average invoiced price – as the upgrades to higher speeds have been implemented without increasing end-user prices. Quite simply, customers have received more for the same price – or have been given the alternative option of purchasing the bandwidth they already had for a lower price. The question is what will happen on the mobile broadband market. From the end user’s point of view, the only difference between the mobile broadband being offered today and the traditional fixed line broadband is the absence of cables. Almost all mobile broadband providers are marketing, pricing and distributing an almost identical product from the end user’s point of view. If this does not change, mobile broadband will easily end up competing with fixed line broadband. In our new report, “Successful Strategies in the Mobile Broadband Market”, we have examined the possibilities that exist for network providers to launch revenue sharing models on the mobile broadband services market, in order to create new revenue streams in addition to the actual access product. But even these revenue sources will not change the fact that the decreasing prices will result in network providers being forced to consolidate in the future. There will be multiple competing network technologies offering mobile broadband. WIMAX is being launched in many countries and in some countries, operators are launching mobile broadband using the CDMA-450 MHz technology. These different networks will result in individual countries having national network coverage from various different network technologies and will thereby create an enormous surplus capacity which can potentially make it difficult for network providers to earn enough money to yield an interest on their investments. As the market develops, prices drop and consolidations starts, this market will experience a number of changes that are similar to the changes the mobile services market has experienced and that will result in today’s value chain radically changing during the next three years. |
| We have thoroughly examined and analysed these – and many other issues – in our new report; “Successful Strategies on the Mobile Broadband Market“.The report is therefore an efficient tool for mobile broadband providers in their efforts to create and implement an optimal strategy. |
