Telecoms Tech

The Chinese press recently reported that sources “close to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT)” have stated that the MIIT is planning to issue TD-LTE licenses to all three Chinese MNOs – China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom.

As other networks fight and collaborate to get their own LTE solutions into the wild, EE (Everything Everywhere) has announced it’s already saturated the market with 500,000 subscribers. Now they’re looking to secure that title position through improved infrastructure and coverage.

According to the latest market study by 4G Americas, the number of LTE connections worldwide passed 100 million in May -- with the U.S. and Canada capturing 57 million subscriptions of that global total.

The Vice President of the European Commission was quoted as saying she has the “support of the highest level in institutions”, yet the biggest representative, the GSMA, doesn’t agree.

Although 4G will quickly become essential, it will not revive the sector’s revenues. In fact we expect that despite 4G, revenues will continue to decline in Europe: -1.8% per year on average by 2016.

Everyone is clamouring to have a piece of the LTE pie, but in a bid to share slices equally, are we just confusing processes and, more importantly, consumers?

Most service providers have reported 1Q13 earnings now. The results were largely as expected. Most telcos face flat to declining revenues, putting their cost base under pressure. For telcos representing over 90% of the global market, revenue and capex both dropped by roughly 1% in 1Q13 versus 1Q12 year on year. A weak European economy and ongoing cuts to mobile termination rates are the main causes.

According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, the cumulative 4G LTE mobile broadband service revenues over the next five years will account for over $1 trillion.