Wireless broadband will emerge to become the access technology of choice for most consumers in the next few years, but fixed-line broadband will not inch away soon, industry stakeholders unanimously predicted during Frost & Sullivan's Philippines Telecom International Summit here Friday.
"A lot of growth from broadband is driven mainly by wireless, but we see the fact that wired broadband will play a role in driving further [broadband] penetration," said Jerome Almirante, head of value-added services and data services department, wireless consumer division of Smart Communications.
Almirante said wireless will enable the faster spread of the concept of connectivity, but focusing on wireless alone is not part of the company's agenda. "Wired broadband has faster and more reliable connection than wireless. PLDT, after all, is still the top wired broadband provider in the country."
Secretary Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology shared during his keynote speech that currently, Smart Communications leads in terms of mobile broadband subscription at 1.2 million users, followed by Globe Telecom with around 379,000 subscribers.
"There is a total subscriber base of not even 2 million [broadband users in the country]," Roxas-Chua said. "That means there's a lot of opportunity but there's also a lot of work for us."
Complementary technologies
Joevel Rivera, product development and management head, Bayan Communications, meanwhile agrees with Almirante regarding the complementary function of wireless to fixed broadband. "In areas where fixed is not available, wireless is the next best thing," he said. "Wireless also acts as a backup for wired, especially during peak hours when the fixed connection is really inconsistent."
Yet despite the robust standing of wireless in the broadband space, telco executives agree that fixed broadband still plays a major role in ensuring connectivity to its subscribers. "There is still an aggressive rollout of fiber and copper and other access infrastructure," Almirante noted.
"We need the wired part for us to backhaul a lot of bandwidth that we carry on our network, especially due to the significant amount of traffic that passes through it," he added.
Rivera, for his part, agrees on the traffic cushion role of fixed broadband, especially with high demand for content today. "We make sure that fiber lines are in place so we are ready to deliver high speed bandwidth to the home, to support the expectations of video and other high-bandwidth applications," he explained.
John Stefanac, president, Qualcomm Southeast Asia/Pacific, meanwhile acknowledged the significant impact wireless will have on fixed broadband, "especially in emerging markets."
"Wireless, however, is not a replacement for fixed connection. But as speeds for wireless broadband increase, the relevance of fixed slowly diminishes," he asserted.
Content is still King
Price of connectivity notwithstanding, access is not the only battlefield telcos should compete on, according to Stefanac. "Operators need to offer a total end-to-end solutions to consumers, otherwise they will end up becoming dumb big pipes," he claimed.
End-to-end solutions, Stefanac explained, involve networks establishing and owning relationships with its subscribers. "Telcos need to be more creative in offering complete solutions, and this may include a focus on applications and establishing an app store," he suggested.
Stefanac said telcos should leverage the growing consumer behavior of wanting information delivered in an instant, wherever they may be. "We have developed ourselves into a generation of 'I want it now' people," he assumed. "That behavior is going to drive the uptake of wireless broadband."
Moving beyond the 2G sphere, therefore, becomes vital, according to Marc Einstein, senior industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan. "In the Philippines, there is almost no voice traffic in networks. Operators need to look to moving beyond messaging and voice in their offerings," he emphasized.
The Qualcomm executive further suggested telcos should offer a wide variety of apps, especially those offering local content, in order to drive broadband uptake. "People want to view things important to them and to their society, so access to local content is critically important," he said.
In the local telco front, Smart Communications said they have already
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