A pretty powerful title for this post, taken from a recent article in the U.K.'s Times online. In this article, the author is speculating about what falling prices for mobile Internet access means for the U.K.'s broadband market as a whole. He says there is a growing trend that people, especially singles, prefer to go online wirelessly instead of via a fixed line DSL or cable connection at home they can only use there. I pretty much agree with the article as in other countries that are even further ahead with broadband wireless this can already be seen. As I've reported here, more than a third of Austria's broadband connections are already wireless and the number is still rising with 57% of all new broadband connections being wireless now. Incredible numbers! I am sure offers like 3's 1GB for 10 pounds a month on a prepaid SIM help as well.
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Have to disagree with this for various reasons.
1) There isn’t enough spectrum / cell sites – work out the aggregate available MHz per sq km & compare with typical density of broadband capacity of a telephone exchange + DSLAMs and cable head-end.
2) Indoor penetration remains highly variable
3) Backhaul limitations
4) IPTV, triple-play & various other bundling approaches incorporating fixed broadband
5) Real-world average speeds remain faster for wireline & will out-accelerate them. (Especially as fibre starts to appear)
6) I suspect the carbon footprint will be higher
7) Mobile access is no use for corporate site access, which will reduce scale economies. I can’t see anyone running a web server off a 3G dongle.
The mere fact that the mobile operators are looking eagerly at femtocells for macro network offload should indicate that fixed broadband isn’t going away.
Ericsson’s view seems to be that mobile broadband will still only account for single-digit % of traffic in 5 years time.