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2013 will be the year of Femtocells-Analyst

  • August 13th, 2008
  • 7:53 am

Informa Telecoms & Media revealed that the  number of femtocells deployed worldwide is predicted to surpass 40 million by 2013, a rollout that could generate savings of $5 billion for operators, provided they plan carefully. Analyst suggests that 2013 will be the year of the femtocell. Since femtocells are making use of the customer’s existing broadband connection, inturn generating cost savings of billions of dollars.

According to Informa, mobile operators would theoretically have to invest $13.8 billion in their macro networks in order to match the traffic carrying capability of the 22 million femtocells deployed in 2013. Taking into account the fact that operators already have a certain amount of capacity redundancy in their networks, enough to handle around 33% of the required extra capacity, this sum is likely to be closer to $9 billion.

Anayst said that “Operators will have to invest a substantial amount of money if they want femtocell services to gain popularity.” Analyst also warned mobile operators selling femtocells in a sporadic fashion, via their usual channels. In addition to making it difficult to manage the femtocell access points and related infrastructure, most importantly, this would mean the operator would not be able to make any capex or opex savings,” analyst further said. For the effective substitution of macro network capacity they must be deployed in clusters, Informa persists.

O2 introduces joint mobile and home broadband (UK)

  • July 31st, 2008
  • 12:29 pm

O2 will now offer a combined broadband package which will offer a 3G mobile dongle and a home landline connection of “up to 8MB” for £20 per month.

The service will include a free USB modem with a 3GB monthly data allowance and “unlimited” Wi-Fi via The Cloud network. The landline connection will offer “unlimited” downloads and a free Wi-Fi router.

The O2 Home Broadband Takeaway box can be bought in shops and contains everything needed to get started, including a router, filters and Ethernet cable.

The box costs £30, but the price will be deducted from monthly bills once the connection is set up.

   

Broadband access in Brazil up 8.3 percent in Q3 (Brazil)

  • December 17th, 2007
  • 1:13 pm

The number of broadband accesses in Brazil grew 8.3 percent in the third quarter of this year, with 544,000 new connections sold in the period, according to the Cisco Broadband Barometer. The total number of users reached 7.1 million. Residential access accounts for 86.3 percent of installed connections. The corporate market grew at a slower pace, just 2.4 percent in comparison to the second quarter. Broadband access speeds between 1 Mbps and 2 Mbps suffered a 30 percent drop in prices, while the drop was only 4.1 percent for speeds above 2 Mbps. The state of Sao Paulo is the biggest consumer of broadband, with 40.1 percent of total connections in Brazil. In national terms, broadband penetration is only 3.8 percent, with most accesses (75 percent) of the xDSL type.

   

US regulator wants open wireless broadband

  • July 11th, 2007
  • 3:43 pm

Kevin Martin, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has called for the winners of the forthcoming 700 MHz radio spectrum auction in the US to provide “truly open” access, resulting in a wireless broadband internet model that mirrors the fixed-line world.

   

 

 

 

Broadband subs to reach 800,000 by end of year

  • July 7th, 2007
  • 9:49 am

South African technology consultancy World Wide Worx has published  that predicts a 3% increase in internet penetration during 2007. This translates to about 3.85 million, or one in twelve South Africans, expecting to have access to the internet, up from 3.73 million last year. They forecast there would be 800,000 broadband subscribers by the end of this year, nearly four times the end-2006 figure of 220,000, but showed more of an upward migration of current dial-up users than a newly introduced group of internet users.  Incumbent Telkom has a de facto monopoly on broadband provision. Once SNO Neotel becomes involved in catering for the broader market as opposed to just businesses, internet connectivity should increase.

 

   

Broadband in 47% of US households

  • July 4th, 2007
  • 11:09 am

Around half (47%) of US adults have broadband connections at home. This is up from 42 percent in 2006 and 30 percent in early-2005. Of all US adults with home internet access, 70 percent using high-speed connections and 23 percent use dial-up. Broadband adoption for adults in households with annual income of USD 30,000-USD 50,000 was 46 percent in early 2007. For senior citizens aged 65 and older broadband adoption was 40 percent. A total of 31 percent of people living in rural areas have broadband at home.

   

Broadband subscribers reach 298 mln in Q1 - Point Topic

  • June 15th, 2007
  • 11:14 am

There were 298 million broadband subscribers worldwide at end-March, according to data from Point Topic. Point Topic’s Research Director Katja Mueller says that number has probably surpassed 300 million now given prevailing growth rates. Eastern Europe was the only region to show growth of over 10 percent in Q1 2007, with Romania reaching over one million subscribers in Q1. The US remains the largest market, adding 2.9 million broadband subscribers to reach 60.4 million. China was in 2nd place, with 4.1 million fewer broadband subscribers than the US at end-March.