From: "Benedict Evans" <inherent@hotmail.com>
Him:
> >>Now, it's perfectly true that consumers show no interest in mobile
> >>multimedia services. ....But they do rather like mobile
> >>voice, I think you'd agree. And 3G gives operators the ability to do
> >> >>*all* voice by mobile - to completely replace a country's fixed voice
> >> >>network.
Me:
> >At this point, I have to say: show me the spreadsheets.
Him:
> Weeelll....
> I'm not going to show you *my* spreadsheets, and the operators won't show
me
> theirs ;)
> But Pan-Euro fixed monthly ARPUS (average revenue per user) are about
Eu50,
> mobile monthly ARPUs are Eu25, and licence fees were just over Eu4 per
> current subscriber per month (assuming a 10-year life span). Bear in mind
> that with 100m net new subs last year, there are lot of new subscribers
who
> aren't using their mobiles much yet.
Me:
Having seen estimates of around $750 of investment per prospective
mobile customer here in Japan (no license fees, or am I mistaken?),
much of which must have gone into equipment investment, it would
seem to me that license fees of about $450 (am I doing the arithmetic
right?) per European customer would leave relatively little left for
Japanese-equivalent equipment expenditures.
Which is precisely what all the "anti-hype" pundits
are pointing out. I doubt the pundits used spreadsheets;
I just did the arithmetic in my head.
Not that I believe either my off-the-cuff arithmetic or
yours - I just think the business case must be marginal
at best.
> So if you can get the cash together up front to pay for the network, and
> achieve a decent market share, then it isn't actually too hard to see how
> you might cover your costs.
I guess I need new glasses - I'm squinting as hard as I can and
still having trouble.
Your first "if" (cash) was a small "if" in the tech-stock Bubble
1990s; "achieve decent market share" is a pretty big "if" in
the cash-strapped, debt-laden, overcrowded arena of the
appropriately-denominated '00 period.
> Of course, if you're going into a market in 6th
> place with no GSM customers, you're probably stuffed. But you really don't
> need to see very much migration from fixed to mobile before you're at
first
> base.
Even with 5 batters racing toward the same goal?
Me:
> >By the way, I find it rather unconvincing that one can get
> >cheaper mobile than landline in some cases - how do we
> >know what's subsidizing what?
Him:
> In the UK, Orange and Vodafone are mobile only, and you can get a
> significant proportion of calls (particularly long-distance) at rates
> cheaper than fixed already. Sonera has only a very small fixed business
> (c.850k subs), and cut their mobile rates to par with fixed rates several
> years ago.
> i.e. you don't need cross subsidies fron the fixed business. In any case,
> those would be illegal in most countries (certainly in the UK)
But is there anything propping up fixed-line rates at this point? That's
the clincher.
Just because a mobile market is competitive doesn't
mean that it isn't subsidized - as in Japan, with its artificially high
landline rates (and initial connection costs) making all mobile services
a tempting value proposition to customers by comparison.
-m
leap@gol.com
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Received on Fri May 18 15:45:54 2001