Carrier executives: Mobile data revenues in trouble
Executives speaking at a CeBIT NGMN (Next Generation Mobile Networks) meeting said that flat-rate mobile data tariffs will lead to usage increasing at a far greater rate than operator revenues. This shift will demand the cost of providing mobile data connectivity be driven down if they were to continue to make money.
Hamid Akhavan, CEO of T-Mobile, said that this could lead to a complete decoupling of traffic and revenues. "It is only a matter of time before we lose all profitability on mobile data. In the past, user experience has been driven by the average traffic on a cell site. Today it has to do with how much peak traffic you can carry in a cell."
Akhavan explained that the cost-per-bit of handling such traffic could be lowered through better spectral efficiency and simplified network architecture. However, he also said it would be essential to reuse "existing assets", adding: "The world doesn't need any more cell sites".
For more on this story:
- read this article from ZDnet.co.uk
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Comments (2) | Post a comment
Comments
Posted by Augustin Dobre | March 10, 2008 - 11:10am
The increased mobile data traffic for low or no price is a fact that cannot be ignored anylonger.
What the end-user might accept to pay for is the data content. As Hamid Akhavan pointed out, the current 3-3,5 G technology has reached its limits and the bottle neck is the radio access. His message might be a strong signal towards the industry for shortening the 4G cycle and accelerating in 5G direction.
Posted by Quemann | March 10, 2008 - 1:03pm
Sprint took the initiative to start unlimited voice/data plan and bigger rivals will soon follow suit. Hopefully and preferaby by 2012, the unlimited voice/data plan will be priced around $35. Big carriers will lose a lot of monopolistic market muscle by then.
