When a Market Grows At the Margin, Marginal Changes Can be Big

In any market where growth or decline is at the margin, as telecom revenue tends to be, relatively small changes can change the trajectory of growth.

Paradoxically, for example, some studies show both growing use of internet access, and declining purchasing of home internet access services. One plausible explanation is that a growing percentage of customers choose to rely solely on mobile internet access.

source: StatCounter

It appears that virtually all the growth in broadband usage in Tennessee, for example, since about 2013, has come either from mobile or some other method of gaining access, based on a reported decline in home internet access purchasing since 2013.

There was a seven percent net gain in internet usage between 2013 and 2014, even as fixed network access dropped two percent. That suggests consumers are opting increasingly to use the internet significantly or primarily on their mobiles.

In the U.S. market, about 12 percent of all internet users relied solely on mobile only for internet access.

source: eMarketer

Fixed network adoption in Tennessee seems to have peaked about 2013, even as internet access adoption climbed to 81 percent.  

That trend, reported in other earlier studies, suggests that mobile internet now is what is driving incremental subscription growth.

The point is that all things related to use of the internet, its apps and devices change with time. It almost does not make sense to distinguish between "broadband" access and ""internet access." It no longer makes sense to ignore the huge amount of internet access that happens in the mobile domain.

Nor, where it comes to measuring "broadband" or "internet access" progress, can be ignore the role played by mobile internet access.

source: Connected Tennessee