“As wireless broadband speed and functionality rises, we foresee a time in the next several years where it is very likely wireline broadband, like wireline voice and video before it, inflects negative,” say equity analysts at Merrill Lynch.
In other words, mobile substitution will happen to internet access as it has happened with voice.
That is not a new idea. As mobile substitution has happened to fixed network voice and seems about to happen to video entertainment, so it will eventually substitution also will happen to internet access.
There has been some speculation about this for perhaps a couple of decades. There was more perhaps-serious discussion over the last five years. But the question is about to become quite concrete as 5G launches.
To be sure, mobile is the way most people globally get access to the internet, just as mobile is the way most people globally use voice services. The big change would be a shift from fixed to mobile for internet access in developed countries.
That shift already has happened for voice, and is starting to happen for video entertainment. As 5G arrives, as small cell architectures and millimeter wave spectrum, spectrum sharing and spectrum aggregation become commonplace, mobile platforms will, for the first time, be able to meet or exceed fixed network internet access speeds, latency and retail price and packaging.
So as wild as it might seem, the precedent of mobile substitution that happened in voice, is about to happen in video entertainment, also will happen in internet access. That is going to put additional pressure on fixed network business models.
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