• MOST READ

• LATEST NEWS

Arvani Group attended the CTIA Wireless show in Orlando, Florida, last month. The show hosted 40,000 attendees from 125 countries. AT&T/T-Mobile merger announcement just prior to the show created a new March madness, filling the airwaves with opinions about regulatory hurdles and the eventual winners and losers.

Tablets, running some flavor of Android, were plentiful, with the iPad 2 as the new benchmark. Fourth generation LTE network deployments are going strong. Spectrum, touted as "oxygen" for wireless industry continues to be the scarce commodity. US wireless data traffic has grown 110% from December 2009 to Dec 2010. US data revenues, at $50B in 2010, account for over one third of total service revenues. Ericsson expects 1 billion mobile broadband connections in 2011 quintupling to 5 billion by 2016.

Here's an analysis and summary of this year's CTIA highlights:

US Mobile Carrier Chiefs Nudged to Discuss Sensitive Issues

A panel discussion among chiefs of wireless at AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint was full of fireworks. The T-Mobile CEO was scheduled to be on the panel as well but cancelled after the merger announcement. Jim Cramer, CNBC host of Mad Money, nudged panelists to answer some sensitive topics. Sprint CEO, Dan Hesse, said that if the AT&T/T-Mobile deal goes through, it would equate to 79% market share for the top two mobile carriers. He posited that the merge would stifle innovation by placing too much power in the hands of two players. He also agreed with the New York Times headline of "Little to Cheer for Consumers in AT&T Deal". AT&T's Ralph de la Vega, of course, disagreed with the NYT's premise, saying the combination will provide a denser grid which will create better reception for subscribers. AT&T needs more spectrum to deal with 8000% growth in data usage in the last 4 years, and that is a key tenet of the proposed T-Mobile acquisition. Overall, Dan Mead, CEO of Verizon Wireless was much more reserved and didn't seem to be against the proposed deal. Verizon is confident about their spectrum position but implied that they will watch potential divestitures from the proposed deal.

For now, mobile operators consider Over The Top (OTT) players, such as Facebook, Google, and Netflix as friends.

FCC Pushing to Get More "Oxygen" to Mobile Industry

For now, it seems like the FCC and mobile carriers have a friendly relationship. The FCC is sympathetic to wireless carriers' cry for additional spectrum. FCC chairman Julius Genachowski reiterated the looming spectrum crunch, and looks at one way to address the issue through voluntary auctions for TV broadcast spectrum. CTIA members also seem happy for the most part with the FCC Net Neutrality regulations that basically exempts wireless from the rules. While Verizon and Metro PCS have challenged this in the courts, overall the FCC's approach to Net Neutrality is acceptable to most CTIA members. Sprint and FCC both called spectrum the "oxygen" that the mobile industry needs for life and growth, and decries its depletion.

Pages: 1 | 2 | 3

Related Stories

COMMENTS

No comments yet. Be the first to add a comment!

Carrier Broadband Performance: Africa & Middle East
Carriers are using mobile broadband as their weapon of choice in the fight against the commoditization of voice and falling ARPU. This...

Voice over LTE: Market Analysis and Forecasts
VoLTE offer unique advantages in lowering a carrier's voice infrastructure economics and promises to improve voice quality, device...