The battle is heating up and speeding up in virtually every market. Customers want the newest, latest, greatest handsets, products, and services.\u00a0 But how long has this battle been heating up, really?\u00a0 The answer is simple:\u00a0 Since the 1980\u2019s.\u00a0 All that has continued to change are the tools used by the operators in the battle.\u00a0 Let\u2019s examine the latest tools being used in the Americas and understand how that impacts Capex.\u00a0 The results may be surprising:<\/p>\n
In what is arguably the start of the latest rounds of \u201cartillery\u201d, T-Mobile launched free roaming to over 100 countries in 2013, and started attracting customers by the millions away from the likes of AT&T and Verizon.\u00a0 After the immediate dust settled and the program was seen to actually be viable, AT&T responded with paying the early termination fees for converting subscribers from T-Mobile.\u00a0 In the process, flat rate plans with expanded data benefited all of us, as T-Mobile and AT&T both offered non-contract based data allotment increases, for no cost (and in many cases, lower<\/em> costs) to existing subscribers, to shore up their retention numbers.<\/p>\n Verizon has taken a more conservative approach, saying they have the largest<\/em> 4G network, which has caused AT&T to counter with having the fastest<\/em> 4G network.\u00a0 Not to be left behind, T-Mobile responded with offering to roll over unused data, and to unleash attractive unlimited plans via their recently acquired MetroPCS brand.<\/p>\n All the while, Sprint, the last major national carrier in the mix, has been losing market share while \u201csprinting\u201d to greatly expand their 4G network.\u00a0 In the recent weeks they have jumped into the market with a very viable message, aimed directly at AT&T and Verizon, to cut subscriber bills in half\u2026literally.\u00a0 They even took out an ad in the most expensive slot in the world:\u00a0 The American Super Bowl.\u00a0 This ad was designed to \u201capologize\u201d to AT&T and Verizon.<\/p>\n And now the latest, and perhaps most interesting move, has been the international expansion of some operators into Latin American markets.\u00a0 The model is simple:\u00a0 Buy a Latin operator network.\u00a0 Re-brand it to your internationally known name.\u00a0 Offer local services that extend all the way into North America<\/em>.\u00a0 No roaming or interconnect, and all local calling.\u00a0 This is a major threat to long-time incumbents in the Latin market, and it\u2019s already happening. Three years ago I was asked what I thought the impact of 4G\/LTE would be to the markets.\u00a0 I made a quite possibly crazy prediction that 4G was going to upset the way we understand roaming and interconnect, simply due to the fact that data, VoIP, and the new products that were going to ride on femtocells and wifi \/ wimax were going to totally change the playing field.\u00a0 Could it be that something similar is gathering momentum today?<\/p>\n What is the common thread in all of these battles in the Americas market(s)?\u00a0 Quite simply, the operator revenues are not growing, or are not growing at the pace to keep up with Capex spend.\u00a0 Networks are being extended and evolved not to add revenue, but instead to sustain revenue.\u00a0 Here\u2019s an example:\u00a0 In the last 24 months I have moved my entire family to 4G.\u00a0 My bill decreased.\u00a0 More data was added to my plan.\u00a0 My bill again decreased.\u00a0 I then expanded my home DSL to a 30x increase in speed.\u00a0 My bill stayed flat.\u00a0 All of this involved more network capacity and expansion in products and services.\u00a0 But I was not further monetized\u2026I was just retained<\/em>.<\/p>\n Capex optimization, if pursued for growth, could be considered a great goal and something to strive toward.\u00a0 However, if Capex optimization is pursued to simply maintain<\/em> your revenues (and market share), this should no longer be considered a goal, but instead a critical strategy for longer term survival.<\/p>\n So ultimately, how do operators monetize networks?\u00a0 Perhaps the question needs to be focused on monetizing customers \u2013 by turning attention toward strategies that get more share of wallet.\u00a0 Operators should invest Capex into supporting behavioural shifts in their customers.\u00a0\u00a0 Mobile wallet, xBanking, xCommerce, etc, need to be provided as revenue-generating services by the operators, for those customers.\u00a0 It\u2019s no longer about getting money for network services\u2026it\u2019s now about getting money from supporting a behaviour facilitated<\/em> by those network services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The battle is heating up and speeding up in virtually every market. Customers want the newest, latest, greatest handsets, products, and services.\u00a0 But how long has this battle been heating up, really?\u00a0 The answer is simple:\u00a0 Since the 1980\u2019s.\u00a0 All that has continued to change are the tools used by the operators in the battle.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18410,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,5],"tags":[131,132,119],"class_list":["post-1203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-capex-optimisation","category-general","tag-capex-optimisation","tag-network-monetization","tag-networks"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.enki.studio\/test\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.enki.studio\/test\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.enki.studio\/test\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.enki.studio\/test\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.enki.studio\/test\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.enki.studio\/test\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.enki.studio\/test\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.enki.studio\/test\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.enki.studio\/test\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.enki.studio\/test\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}