Tag: fixed line

Carnival of the Mobilists # 222

On 03/05/2010

Here it is, the May Bank Holiday edition of the Carnival of the Mobilists. For those not in the know: it is a weekly write-up of the best and brightest in the world of mobile-(related) blogging and is being hosted each week on another blog; this week it’s me… 😉 The easiest way to follow the Carnival every week is to subscribe to the Twitter stream of the formidable Peggy Anne Salz.

So here’s what this week has in stock for you:

James Coops from Mobyaffiliates provides us with an excellent overview of mobile affiliate networks, a fairly fresh approach to carry the multi-billion dollar online equivalent to mobile.

Jay Ehret asks the question that normally costs a round, namely “Is it the Year of Mobile yet?“. And he has a refreshingly clear look at it: a) it is impossible to throw all of the various mobile marketing things (SMS, mobile web, LBS, mobile wallets, m-commerce, etc) into one bucket, and right he is!, b) he reckons that it is certainly time for mobile now since low entry barriers and cost basically make it a ride you cannot lose.

Dr Jim Taylor delights us by adding a few more acronyms to the mix: NEI is the new TMI. The “I” stands for information and Jim looks how the wealth of available information and the way people handle it may reflect upon larger sociological developments. Very thoughtful stuff!

Ajit Jaokar from the OpenGardensBlog looks at the decline of fixed line and wonders if we’re all erring, namely because the wires are needed to take the data load off (hyper-)broadband mobile networks. He then wonders if one shouldn’t think mobile and fixed-line as one and design accordingly.

Peggy Anne Salz points us to a podcast on app store marketing. With nigh on 70 app stores and gazillions of apps, discovery, marketing and sustained usage are issues central to the distribution (and revenue!) strategy of every app developer (I for one certainly bookmarked it).

Tego Interactive’s Alfred de Rose queries whether Apple needs an iPhone in the enterprise (he thinks it doesn’t, and his arguments are very noteworthy!).

And, finally, Rudy de Waele announced the next edition of the wonderful event that is Mobile 2.0 Europe, which will take place in beautiful Barcelona – and not in rainy February either but on 17 June. Book your tickets here. Next to it, there will be the AppCircus, a unique traveling showcase of the most creative and innovative apps presented by their creators at top events around the world.

And that’ll conclude this week’s carnival. Make sure to clue yourself up, read, listen, ponder, share and discuss!

Next week’s edition will be hosted by James Coops at his MJelly Blog.

Global Telecoms and Broadband Stats: Mobile Broadband outstrips Fixed-Line

By Volker

On 07/10/2009

In 1

The United Nations’ agency for telecoms, ITU, has released a set of numbers on mobile and broadband penetration globally. There have been many times more mobile phones than fixed-line telephones on the planet for a while now but now this also applies to broadband connections: by the end of 2009, the ITU expects 600m mobile broadband subscriptions globally compared to only 500m for fixed-line equivalents.

This is not to say that all is good already. The divide between the so-called first and third worlds is immense: the broadband penetration in Europe is 20%, in Africa only 0.1%. And it is the latter where the exponential further growth of mobile (telephony and broadband) will lie then: the competition mobile networks have from fixed lines is much lower in territories with less legacy networks built. And in rural parts of Africa (and elsewhere), the cost of putting up the respective infrastructure makes the installation of fixed line networks simply untenable.

The cost of ICT spend represent a whopping 41% of an African average monthly income. In the Americas (average of North and South), this is c. 7% and in Europe just over 1%.

Here’s some other bits from the ITU’s facts and figures:

4.6bn estimated mobile subscribers by end of 2009.
25% of the world’s population uses the Internet.
China has overtaken the US as the country with the biggest broadband subscriber base (but still has “only” 6.2% penetration rate on a subscription (as opposed to household) basis.
Of the world’s population (6.9bn), 70.8% (or 4.9bn) have access to a TV at home (not equal to number of TV sets) and 27.3% (1.9bn) have access to a PC at home. By number of households, this looks as follows: 1.7bn households globally, 1.3bn of which have a TV and 600m a PC. The gap is expected to narrow quickly due to declining prices and ongoing convergence.
The US accounts for 82.6% of all mobile broadband subscriptions in the Americas (North and South). In Asia and the Pacific, 70% of such subscriptions are in Japan and South Korea.
The top 5 most highly developed ICT economies (listen up, Mr Scoble) are:

Sweden,
South Korea,
Denmark,
Netherlands, and
Iceland

Japan ranks on # 12, the US ranks on # 17, Canada on # 19 and Russia on # 50.

The ITU provides some reports as downloads: The World in 2009 [PDF] as well as a statistical profile on the state of the information society in Africa [PDF].

No more Landlines

By Volker

On 18/09/2008

In OEM

According to research firm Nielsen (whose mobile arm incorporates what was previously known as Telephia), more than 20m household in the US (0r 17%) have ditched landlines in favour of mobile (or as they would call it cell) phones. It signifies a rather steep increase.

Here’s the highlights of a white paper they published on the issue (which you can download here):

– U.S. cord cutters tend to have lower income-levels—59 percent have household incomes of $40,000 or less.
Smaller households, with just one or two residents, are more likely to cut the cord than larger households.
– Moving or changing jobs are the biggest life events associated with cord cutting: 31 percent of cord cutters moved prior to cord cutting and 22 percent changed jobs.
– Wireless substitutors tend to use their mobile phones more than their landline peers, 45 percent more per phone, but still save an average $33 per month in a household of one subscriber, less $6.69 for each additional wireless resident, when they cut the cord.

Now, what I do find surprising is not the fact but rather the apparent reasons given for “wireless substitution”. It is cost…

On data, Nielsen also speculates:

“Landline wireless substitution may just be the start. […] As wireless data networks improve and speeds become more and more competitive with broadband, some consumers may cut the Internet cord, as well, favoring wireless data cards and other access through carrier networks.”

Now this I understand, and the study shows indeed that wireless-only consumers use the mobile Internet more than twice as often as their primary access to the web than the good old-fashioned rest (11% vs 5%). It will be interesting to see how quick this substitution works though for the masses: people with money tend to retain their landlines, which suggests that a wireless-only solution is still less convenient. With hardware (computers, phones, etc) becoming increasingly able to access multiple wireless standards (i.e. via the mobile networks as well as WiFi, etc), this factor might however be evaporating relatively quickly.

Bye bye, fixed line…

By Volker

On 03/03/2008

I mean, it’s nothing new as us mobilists knew it all along but now, alas, someone put their finger in the air and quantified it. So here goes: as early as next year, wireless phone users will outnumber landline users by 3 to 1. Impressive, huh?

Some more somewhat obvious findings are: rich nations are running out of non-users, and in some emerging markets, where rising personal incomes have made wireless affordable, that gap closes quickly, too. Even so, only half the world’s population uses mobile phones now. Most subscriber growth over the next five years will quite naturally come from India, China, parts of Asia, and Africa. I think the author might have forgotten Brazil…

And now, dear content lovers, comes the candy: the analysts say that “[f]irms must boost their average monthly revenue per user, or ARPU. Text-messaging has been the biggest moneymaker, along with ring tones and games. Music and video downloads are starting to catch on”. By 2011, U.S. carriers will garner 35% of service revenue from data products, more than twice the 2007 share, says the Telecommunications Industry Association.

But in emerging markets, non-voice services are growing, too: “Wireless companies need to evolve their business models because of the changing nature of the industry, not just penetration levels,” said Sureyya Ciliv, chief executive of Turkcell. “Communication and information technologies are converging globally.