Wired or Wireless- users don’t (want to) care

When you’re in the high-tech field, you sometimes lose sight that a lot of people don’t really care about the technical underpinnings of how the services are being offered. It’s really all about the application. So it was an eye opener for me when I read results of a recent study by Sandvine Inc.[1]. The company sent their customers (predominantly residential based service providers) a questionnaire in soliciting input for their future product direction and the results were very interesting.

The big ‘a-ha’ for me was that for subscribers, the Internet is the Internet, whether it’s accessed through a wire or over wireless spectrum. Much like how many subscribers don’t differentiate between cable and DSL, they don’t really differentiate wireless and wireline technologies. Access to service is basically irrelevant- what is most important is the service itself. Other interesting findings were the shifts happening in the North American market:

· mobile data traffic is exceeding mobile voice traffic, and the “revenue gap” is growing

· Subscribers are turning to Skype in massive numbers (fixed and wireless)

· Subscribers are just starting to understand the true potential of mobile connectivity and the combination of powerful devices like smartphones and fast networks

· Fixed connections are active for about 3 hours per day, while mobile connections are only active for about 45 minutes per day (remember, this is a residential- focused survey)

· Social networking services like Facebook, continue to be a significant and growing proportion of mobile Internet

· From 2009 to 2010, the major change to the peak period composition of the fixed networks is the increasing presence of Real-Time Entertainment or RTE, like Netflix.

· Netflix represents more than 20% of download traffic during peak hours

· RTE represents 43% of total peak period bytes of fixed access, up significantly from less than 30% a year ago. In turn, Web Browsing has suffered the largest decline, now only accounting for 20% of total traffic.

· For mobile networks, web browsing holds the dominant position at 27% of daily traffic. This percentage is higher during the peak period, where it rises to 31% data consumption

· From January to September 2010, the level of Real-Time Entertainment traffic that drives peak period mobile consumption has risen substantially: from about 25% to 41%

These are not hard statistics- really just one survey- but they’re very interesting nonetheless! This consumer trend could have spill-over when users are in a ‘business’ environment. In business, unfortunately, pricing will remain a dominant reason for using wireline vs. wireless access- that’s just the reality of the market. But it would be wise for providers- if they want to stay ahead of the curve- to acquaint themselves to the shifting dynamics of the market.

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[1] From their 2010 Mobile Internet Phenomena Report. Sandvine Inc. is engaged in providing network equipment and software to help DSL, cable, fixed wireless and mobile operators better understand network traffic and manage network congestion. They have customers in over 80 countries, representing millions of broadband and wireless subscribers.