How much potential disruption to market share structures in the global Internet service provider market could happen as new platforms and new competitors enter the market?
There now is lots of platform innovation, and potentially significant new supplier entry as well. In addition to lots of development work in the fixed wireless area by a growing range of firms (including Facebook, Google, AT&T and Verizon), 5G mobile standards already include multi-gigabit data rates as core features of the standards.
CableLabs in the United States is working on symmetrical 10 Gbps hybrid fiber coax networks.
Add the other backhaul developments (unmanned aerial vehicles, balloon fleets, low earth orbit satellites) and there is potential room for disruption.
In the near term, though, it seems as though new supplier market entry will have the bigger impact, as Internet access in many markets is a zero sum game continues to prevail, and one contestant’s gains will come at another’s expense.
In other words, oligopoly in the access market does not appear a condition that could break soon.
Capital-intensive industries tend to produce oligopoly market structures. Even some industries that are scale-intensive or moderately capital intensive also tend to do so, it seems. Look at Apple’s market share , for example.
So one reasonable question in the global access business is to ask whether technology platform advances can reduce capital investment hurdles enough to break the “oligopoly” market structure.
If so, then a wider new competitors might expect to break into the top ranks. If not, then only big firms can hope to do so.
At the moment, in several markets, it appears the latter thesis will be tested. In India, the entry of Reliance Jio already is rearranging market structure, forcing consolidation. In the U.S. market, Comcast and Charter Communications are getting ready to enter the market. In Myanmar and Singapore, new competitors are being authorized.
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