Yankee Group: Mobile Broadband’s Next Big Push

Executive Summary

Despite estimates that U.S. 3G subscribers number as high as 117 million, mobile broadband’s strong growth has been hampered by poor access and high costs. In the next decade, three factors will change everything: prepaid mobile broadband plans, the FCC’s National Broadband Plan and carrier marketing wars that emphasize 3G coverage. As a result, mobile broadband providers will be able to position their offering as an alternative to home fixed broadband service for two segments of the U.S. population:
• Narrowband Subscribers: Today’s dial-up Internet user, dissatisfied with slow Internet speeds.
• Broadband Sharers: Consumers who connect using municipal Wi-Fi connections or their neighbor’s WLAN.

In this report, we demonstrate that both segments represent good mobile broadband prospects based on five wants, needs and behavioral variables that distinguish mobile from fixed broadband subscribers: the desire to connect on the go, few connected devices, low sensitivity to slower connection speeds, small household sizes and low sensitivity to broadband caps. Using Yankee Group and FCC data, we estimate that both segments represent a market opportunity between $821.3 million and $1.4 billion in annual revenue.

Keywords

Mobile, broadband, growth, 3G

Pages
Publish Date & Author(s)

by Dmitriy Molchanov, Analyst
10 pages
June 2010