Driven primarily by technology advancements and the increasing use of data-intensive applications, global broadband subscriptions have witnessed strong growth both in the wireless and wireline broadband segments.
While growth is expected to slow down in mature markets at least in the fixed broadband segment, many emerging markets are still at early stages of broadband deployment and will see rapid growth in adoption rates. According to analyst firm Gartner, over the next five years, emerging markets like China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, the Latin American countries, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa will collectively provide twice as many new broadband connections as mature markets.
While the quality of service, higher throughput and applications like IPTV and VOIP will drive growth in the wireline broadband space, wireless broadband will be driven by the need to remain connected at all times – the biggest advantage of mobility.
Wireline broadband
Research firm Strategy Analytics estimates one billion fixed line broadband connections across the world by 2015. Thus, mobile broadband is not likely to replace fixed line connections any time soon.
According to ABI Research, among the wireline broadband technologies, DSL continues to remain the dominant platform, accounting for over 60 per cent of the total broadband subscriber base. Fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) accounts for 11 per cent of broadband users while cable modem accounts for about 25 per cent. However, growth in FTTH deployments is going to be the dominant theme over the next few years and these networks are expected to more than double by 2014.
The Asia-Pacific region has been spearheading fibre broadband penetration and currently represents over 80 per cent of the fibre broadband subscribers worldwide. While Japan continues to lead the world in terms of the number of FTTHx subscribers, with NTT being the largest fibre broadband operator, South Korea has the highest penetration in the world and is the first country to reach over 50 per cent penetration of households using FTTx.
The US and parts of Europe are also rolling out fibre, although Europe is clearly lagging behind with only about 2 million FTTH broadband subscribers. However, this is likely to change in the near future with a number of countries in this region accelerating fibre rollout. British Telecom has set a target of providing fibre broadband to 40 per cent of homes by 2012. In Italy, three operators – Fastweb, Vodafone and Wind – are planning to launch a shared optic fibre network to deliver FTTH to end-users.
Global fixed broadband service revenues totalled $170 billion by end-2009, with the year-on-year growth at 14 per cent, and is expected to reach over $184 billion by end-2010. According to ABI Research, while DSL is the largest broadband revenue generator, accounting for 62 per cent of the total global broadband service revenues, broadband fibre service revenue is the fastest growing among various platforms, primarily stimulated by subscriber adoption.
In developing markets like India, fixed broadband penetration – at under 10 million – remains low. These markets are usually characterised by lower speeds and higher prices vis-a-vis developed markets. In countries such as Thailand and India, broadband connections with a download speed of 4 Mbps cost around $19 per month while in France, a 20 Mbps fixed broadband connection costs around $24. The high price is a barrier to greater broadband adoption in developing countries. In India particularly, given the lack of fixed line infrastructure and poor PC penetration growth, the broadband segment is likely to be propelled more by wireless technologies like 3G and Wi-Max.
In Africa, another developing market, growth in the broadband segment has been slow; there were even doubts as to whether this technology would ever take off on the African continent. However, recent research by US-based firm Reportlinker suggests that the market is inching closer to tipping point.
With submarine cables increasingly connecting Africa to the rest of the world, the long-standing supply bottlenecks are being removed. There is strong demand for broadband in the region provided the pricing is right. According to Reportlinker, the number of broadband subscriptions in Africa at an estimated 7.6 million as of end-2009 has grown at nearly 60 per cent from the 2008 level.
In developed markets, growth in the wireline broadband space is being driven by applications like IPTV, online gaming and video conferencing, and service providers offering multi-play bundles and reduced access prices. In fact, IPTV penetration, at approximately 7.7 per cent of the total broadband lines (over 36 million subscribers), has witnessed growth rates in excess of 46 per cent during the March 2009-March 2010 period. This is significant penetration given the established position of cable, DTT and satellite alternatives in many mature markets.
On a regional basis, Europe continues to lead the IPTV market with nearly 50 per cent of the total IPTV subscribers, especially in France. However, with nearly 3 million IPTV subscriber additions in 2009-10 and a 32 per cent market share, Asia is beginning to challenge that dominance. In Asia, China is the top IPTV growth market with over 5 million lines. South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong are the other countries with a significant IPTV subscriber base. Meanwhile, North and South America together account for about 18 per cent of the market while the share of the Middle East and Africa is negligible but is expected to grow in the future.
Another key application that has witnessed growth is fixed VOIP. Fixed VOIP, including residential subscribers and business IP centrex lines, which stood at over 130 million lines/subscribers as of December 2009, is likely to grow at a 40 per cent compound annual growth rate through 2013. Given the projected 615 million fixed broadband subscribers in 2013, fixed VOIP penetration is expected to be around 35 per cent, up from a little under 30 per cent as of December 2009.
Mobile broadband
While mobile broadband services are likely to be available in India on a large scale only by end-2010, globally these services have grown rapidly, propelled by an increase in 3G network deployments; upgrades to HSPA networks, netbooks and smartphones; and operators who have reported significant growth in revenues from data services.
These service providers are capitalising on this opportunity on the back of strong demand from consumers for high speed access to the internet while on the move, and have committed to investments of about $72 billion (over 50 per cent of the total capex) in mobile broadband technologies, according to Deutsche Bank.
The bulk of this investment is likely to come from the Asia-Pacific region at an estimated $34 billion, followed by North America and Europe at $19 billion and $14 billion respectively.
HSPA and HSPA+ (GSM family of technologies) have become the dominant global mobile broadband technologies with more than 200 million subscribers accessing mobile broadband using this technology. It is estimated that the subscriber base for HSPA-based mobile broadband services will rise to 342 million by end-2010.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, there are currently 56 UMTS-HSPA networks commercially deployed in 24 countries, and mobile broadband adoption has contributed to the increase in overall broadband penetration here as operators shifted their focus from voice-centric to data-centric (3G) services by offering data value-added services and targeting higher-value users. For example, Latin American operator Telefonica witnessed a significant increase in its mobile broadband subscriber base from less than 2 million in March 2009 to 5 million in March 2010 and revenue from data services accounted for 20.6 per cent of total mobile revenues in the first quarter of this year (March 2010).
In the US, the key wireless service providers, AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile, are among the top 10 global mobile data operators. The average industry percentage contribution of data to the overall ARPU crossed the 30 per cent mark in the first quarter of 2010 and is likely to get past 35 per cent by the end of the year.
According to Berg Insight, mobile broadband subscribers accounted for 17.3 per cent of all broadband connections in Europe as of March 2010 with mobile broadband subscribers in the five major European countries (the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain) alone amounting to over 22 million as of 2009. This figure is expected to rise to over 43 million in 2011. In terms of tariffs, the UK is leading the way to cheap mobile broadband in Europe. Looking at the five leading markets, the UK beat France, Germany, Italy and Spain by driving down average prices for mobile broadband to around 17 (?15.2). Conversely, the highest costing country was France, where 4 GB of data can cost as much as 85 (?76), but on an average, users pay twice as much as in the UK.
Wi-Max, another wireless broadband access (BWA) technology, has gained significant momentum over the past two years. Global Wi-Max subscriptions are expected to grow from the present 3.9 million to 92.3 million in 2015.
While the technology was introduced in 2004, it has been bogged down by a number of constraints including the economic recession; the fact that it is being pitted against 3G and advanced technologies like long term evolution (LTE), which led to a decline in investor confidence; and slower-than-expected spectrum licensing in countries like India and Indonesia that represent a huge subscriber potential for this technology.
According to the Yankee Group, the lion’s share of Wi-Max’s predicted increases will come from the portable broadband segment, as the technology is most suited for that. However, there are likely to be notable exceptions to this rule. For example, service providers in the US (in addition to Japan and Korea) are taking a relatively aggressive stance in targeting Wi-Max for mobile applications.
In fact, the North American Wi-Max market is well served by players like DigitalBridge Communications, Xanadoo and Clearwire. However, Clearwire is clearly the dominant player and intends to deploy a nationwide Wi-Max network in the US in the 2.6 GHz frequency band and provide 4G services to its strategic partners, including Sprint and Comcast. The company is currently in the process of upgrading from a proprietary technology to mobile Wi-Max (802.16e) and to date, it offers commercialised mobile Wi-Max services in Atlanta, Baltimore, Las Vegas and Portland Oregon with aggressive plans to launch additional markets through 2009 and 2010. Between Clearwire and start-ups like DigitalBridge Communications and Xanadoo, the North American market is served well by Wi-Max players.
In contrast to North America, the growth in the Asia-Pacific region, a huge market for Wi-Max, has so far been slow, with Korea being the only key market in the region. In India, it is expected to take off with the auctions for spectrum having been completed recently. However, the technology is unlikely to gain traction in China, where the service providers have opted for TD-SCDMA and LTE TDD.
