Nov 1, 2009
Mobile broadband sales are slowing
Only one month after Tesco announced record sales in pay as you go mobile broadband, sales appear to be slowing. Latest industry figures show that since students have gone back to university sales in mobile broadband have slowed down.
The whole broadband market had been following the growth of mobile broadband – it was deemed that mobile connections would replace fixed broadband connections (at the home of office). Business users in particular were lined up for taking up mobile broadband – because of the flexibility it would bring business users whilst they were out and about.
Now that the uptake of mobile broadband is waining, the fixed line operators have rushed out to re-position themselves. The consensus – at least publicly and currently – is to affirm that mobile broadband was never seen as a replacement for fixed-line broadband, instead it is seen as supplemental;
BT broadband …
“We certainly believe there’s a role for mobile broadband. But we’ve always marketed our mobile broadband as a way of taking your broadband out of the home, rather than as a substitute for fixed broadband. For a stable and reliable broadband service, we believe fixed is best.”
Carphone Warehouse (owners of TalkTalk, AOL and Tiscali broadband) …
“We get a sense that the mobile broadband thing has peaked. We are seeing some of those people begin to realise that the bandwidth you get on mobile is so much less than you get on a fixed line. Mobile broadband is increasingly a supplementary rather than a substitutional thing, and an increasing proportion of Carphone sales are of pre-pay dongles. I carry one around with me and am also surprised now how much free Wi-Fi is available: on the train, a lot of hotels have it, bars etc. I’m using Wi-Fi more when I am out and about than mobile broadband.”
Virgin Media …
“We’ve always said that mobile broadband is complementary to fixed line not a replacement.”
Original article was on the Guardian website.
