WCA January 2015

Telecom news

all phone tiers. The outlook looks slightly better in emerging markets where a lively 33 per cent growth rate is expected – along with much lower ASPs. (“Smartphone Squeeze: Growth in Smartphone Sales Is Tailing Off in Europe,” 15 th October) Isolate smartphones and things look up, Mr Scales wrote. CCS estimates that 1.3 billion smartphones were sold globally in 2014, an increase of 25 per cent year-on-year. However, this compares to a growth rate of 40 per cent in 2013. CCS expects the slowing trend to continue and year-on-year growth to drop to 15 per cent in 2015. By 2018, the projection is for the smartphone to have triumphed absolutely. The “lowly feature phone,” says CCS Insight, will by then account for just 17 per cent of the total mobile phone market. Also according to CCS, Mr Scales noted in conclusion, by 2017 the bulk of 4G phone sales will be in China. Elsewhere in telecom . . . Ø Telekom Austria announced on 16 th October that its first customer in Vienna had been connected to “G.fast ultra-broadband” using Alcatel-Lucent kit. The technology reportedly has been demonstrated at data rates of more than 100Mbit/s per household using existing copper lines.  The company said that it plans to selectively deploy G.fast along- side, rather than in place of, fibre to the home (FTTH). It is described as a hybrid technology with fibre delivering high-speed broadband to the building (FTTB) and G.fast handling the final few hundred feet via the building’s existing copper wiring, thus avoiding any costly rewiring. This would commend the method for use in larger, older European cities, such as Vienna, with many historic multi-dwelling buildings. Ø The 16-member consortium behind the Europe India Gateway (EIG) submarine cable system has reported that Ciena has completed the first phase of its 100Gbps upgrade, and com- menced work on the second phase of the project.

Research from the telecom market research and consulting firm TeleGeography indicates that, while the number of circuit-switched (PSTN) telephone lines is dropping steadily, much of the decline in switched subscribers can be attributed to the growth of fixed VoIP (voice over internet Protocol) service. (“Fixed-Line Telephony: A Far Cry From Dead,” 15 th October) Tracking of landline, wireless and broadband competition found that the total (PSTN and VoIP) of global fixed-line voice subscribers peaked at 1.29 billion in 2008, and has declined at a compounded annual rate of 1.3 per cent since. But according to TeleGeography the aggregate numbers “mask a large shift in market composition.” Even as switched telephone lines have declined at a compounded annual rate of four per cent, VoIP subscribers have grown 18 per cent, helping to offset much of the decline in switched phone lines. VoIP connections now account for 20 per cent of fixed lines worldwide, up from just eight per cent in 2008. This uptake is largely attributable to the rapid adoption of multi-play plans, which bundle fixed voice service with broadband Internet, TV, and sometimes mobile telephony services. TeleGeography cited the example of US telecom AT&T, which in June 2014 reported that 97 per cent of its TV customers subscribed to at least one other service, while two-thirds of these users subscribed to three or four. “It will be decades before the PSTN disappears from all corners of the world, but the trend towards VoIP is inexorable,” TeleGeography flatly declared – a conclusion supported by the statistics. In 2013, 25 per cent of fixed lines in eastern Europe were IP-based, while 35 per cent of fixed voice lines in western Europe and 33 per cent in North America were IP. Some national incumbent providers are now transitioning to all-IP networks. In 2014, Deutsche Telekom enabled Macedonia to become the first country to switch fully from the PSTN to an all-IP network, and the company aims to turn off its legacy TDM switches and completely convert its network in Slovakia to IP by the end of 2014. Ø The projection has total global fixed lines falling to ten per cent below their 2008 peak level by 2018, at which point switched lines will have declined by 33 per cent. VoIP lines will have grown by over 250 per cent over the period to account for nearly one-third of phone lines worldwide. TeleGeography sums up: “Fixed-line voice is a far cry from dead. But it is no longer synonymous with the PSTN.” The traditional voice market may be in long-term decline, but growth in fixed VoIP is cushioning the fall

Projection to 2018: the smartphone triumphs absolutely over ‘the lowly feature phone’ “CCS Insight in October released its latest Global Mobile Phone Forecast and it makes for fairly grim reading if you’re a vendor. “It’s a slightly more welcome develop- ment if you’re a user. If you’re a Chinese user, even better.”

IT journalist Ian Scales was parsing the finding of the British-based global technology analyst company that, after four years of growth, the ASP (average selling price) of a mobile phone is dropping. While some 1.94 billion were sold in 2014, that represents a growth rate of “only” ten per cent. While that would be good in any other business, Mr Scales wrote in TelecomTV , mobile can now expect pressure on prices and profits across

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Wire & Cable ASIA – January/February 2015

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