Monday, February 07, 2011

The truth about wireless

Reports from Tellabs and Cisco tell us a lot about the future of mobile data.

Tellabs concludes;

The study showed that widely held industry beliefs about rising costs and falling revenues are correct. If the trends assumed in the model are followed, and carriers maintain their current modus operandi, carriers in each region can expect to see an end of profit within a four year window.

Cisco concludes;

Global mobile data traffic will increase 26-fold between 2010 and 2015. Mobile data traffic will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 92 percent from 2010 to 2015, reaching 6.3 exabytes per month by 2015.

For those pundits who still want to claim mobile will be the winner there probably are some real issues to deal with. The first is the overall capacity question. The second is the inefficiency of dividing spectrum into separate lots for different operators. The third is the means to achieve efficient traffic hand-off.

Unfortunately operators will try to pursue the Tellabs strategy of providing "intelligence". Users don't think that strategies designed to increase the price of a service and reduce flexibility and choice are "intelligent".

Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est

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