Which Customers Drive Demand for the Highest-Bandwidth Services?

In many developing economies, it arguably is the case that Long Term Evolution fourth generation networks, where available, have been used most by business customers, even if that likely tends not to be the case elsewhere.

But there is truth to the argument that, in many markets, the absolute fastest services--fixed or mobile--have the highest appeal to business users. The simple reason is that such customers often do not pay for the services, so “cost” is immaterial.

That might be the case for fixed network Internet access services, at least most of the services where the fastest speeds sell for triple-digit amounts. It arguably is not the case when gigabit services cost only double digit sums, and there are no "slower" service options.

In the U.S. mobile market, where neither quality of service nor speed are possible differentiators of service provided by any single operator to its customers, the predominance of business users is not an issue.

But that might not be the case everywhere. Business users likely are disproportionately heavy users of faster network platforms (4G instead of 3G, for example).

Executives at U.K. mobile firm EE seem to believe business users will be the primary candidates for a gigabit LTE service.

“The biggest impact of 4G has been on the business side, not on the consumer side," said EE CEO Olaf Swantee. "Data volumes among consumers have grown four times but on the business side they have grown six times since we first launched."