John Linton .....to any business plan's value....a pretty obvious aspect of planning.
I referenced an article a day or so ago that quoted some ACMA statistics on the increasing decline in residences that had a wire line telephone service and the surging use of mobile data services.
http://www.itwire.com/it-industry-news/market/43835-acma-report-shows-australians-going-mobile-big-time
Now, I'm not going through the 'arguments' I have made and referenced over the past three years about how and why mobile data services will seriously erode the ADSL or fibre usage - get over it - anyone who insisted that ADSL was impervious to that erosion were, and are, just plain wrong. The follow on "fact" is that the trend will continue and the fact that follows that fact is that any 'business plan' that's based on "100% take up of fibre to the home" is more obviously ridiculous now than it was when that statement was initially made.
I read this earlier this morning:
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/12/09/google-more-than-300000-android-phones-activated-each-day/?mod=rss_WSJBlog&mod=
and was surprised at the rapidly increasing take up of Android. When Exetel commissioned a MoIP development, Symbian dominated the market and we didn't think it worthwhile to pursue an Android development. If these statistics are true then we had better do that. Even if the figures are not accurate they confirm the ongoing trend reported by ACMA of more and more people using data on mobile devices. Of course, this usage is not any indication on its own of anything other than the march of technology. But, taken with the increasing number of homes that have no telephone line it would be foolish to think that those home's residents haven't also decided to use wireless broadband for their mainstream internet connections.
What should be more concerning, if you were basing your decision to build a fibre network, is the age demographics of the residents of these telephoneless residences - under 35. These people would be normally expected to conform to the "massive downloader/games player latency freak/on line movie watching categories. If they are, then 5 or so gbs and latencies around 80 milliseconds are, apparently, more than sufficient for their internet use today. It would also be a concern that people who haven't developed an addiction for on line games and the theft of other people's property in their late teens, 20's and early thirties are less likely to ever go down that path once they are over 35.
With the rapidly increasing use of VoIP to make telephone calls the need for a telephone line is obviously decreasing. With the ongoing reduction in wireless data services the need for a telephone line for an ADSL service is similarly decreasing. For the people who insist that ADSL type services are essential for massive down loads the fact remains that even including the massive down loaders the average down load on the services Exetel provide is less than 15 gb per person per month.........over 90% of users down load less than 10 gb per month. While I very much doubt our figures are indicative of anything very significant they are, yet another, indication of the trends in current internet use - more wireless and more VoIP resulting in less ADSL and less PSTN telephone calls - they are very real, and very obvious, trends.
Of course, it is not sensible to read to much in to trends in your own business - obviously such trends are heavily influenced by your own actions which may well have no relevance to the general market places in which you operate. Whatever view any individual might want to take it would be very unwise to dismiss trends that don't suit your personal agendas.
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