I was over in The Hague this week and the message from the Netherlands is that mobile broadband is really starting to take off after a slow start. I'm glad to hear it because my forecast in the Mobile broadband in Europe: forecasts and analysis 2009–2014 report from Analysys Mason was that the market would see rapid growth this year. It's nice to be right.
Another market that I'm expecting better things from is France. Very low MBB penetration so far, but there is some reason to be cheerful based on Orange's recent KPIs. Their dongle subs in France increased 45% in the first half of 2009 to almost 800k subscribers. During the first half on 2009 they added almost as many connections as during the whole of 2008. All this means France is just about on target to hit the 93% growth rate that I predicted for 2009 as a whole. It may even exceed it!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
Any thoughts on this for mobile broadband in Europe?
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/lekscm
It's inevitable that operators will get to use 900MHz spectrum for HSPA etc. The issue is with those operators that don't have any 900MHz spectrum as they'll tend to kick up a fuss. Resolving that is the big issue. As for performance, 900MHz allows for cheaper deployment over wide areas, so it's good for rural coverage but in urban areas performance probably won't be significantly better that at the existing 2100MHz.
ReplyDeleteMatt: I suppose I was thinking of the mechanics of refarming frequencies from 2G use to 3G use. Lots of people are still using 2G devices on those frequencies. What happens to them? And will current MBB dongles and devices cope? These can usually handle GPRS, and are capable of working at these frequencies. But does it follow that they will handle HSPA at these frequencies?
ReplyDeleteMost operators won't use all of their 900MHz spectrum for UMTS. They'll keep some to support legacy voice and besides which 1800MHz will remain a GSM band for the foreseeable future.
ReplyDeleteUMTS over 900MHz will need a whole new range of devices although the extra cost will probably be minimal. There's already a pretty wide range of devices available as there are already markets around the world with 3G at 900MHz such as New Zealand and the vendors have been anticipating 3G @ 900MHz for years.
Here in Australia optus and vodafone use 900 mhz outside of the cities and 2100 mhz inside the cities and using 2100 mhz in a hillie area is a newsence and the company's should close down 900 gsm and use all the space for umts on 900 mhz and leave 1800 mhz for gsm and another company telstra uses 850 mhz and 2100 mhz. optus and vodafone have alot of blackspots on there network around australia and the goverment in australia should force the networks to install 900mhz umts on there towers in the major cities like brisbane and other areas with only 2100 mhz to add 900 mhz umts on those towers as well
ReplyDelete