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Latin America: 0.7 exabytes/month The average mobile connection is expected to increase sevenfold from 2012 to 2017. Mobile connection speeds are a key factor in supporting mobile data traffic growth. Cisco notes that many global mobile carriers are deploying 4G technologies to address consumer and business users’ demands for wireless services. In many emerging markets, carriers are creating new mobile networks with 4G solutions. In mature markets, carriers are supplementing or replacing legacy (2G/3G) networks with 4G technologies. The Cisco Mobile VNI study now projects the growth and impact of 4G. In 2012, 2G supported 76% of global mobile devices/M2M connections; 3G supported 23%; and 4G supported 1%. By 2017, 2G networks will support 33% of global mobile devices/M2M connections; 3G networks will support 57%; and 4G networks will support 10%. In 2012, 4G connections accounted for 14% (124 petabytes/month) of mobile data traffic. By 2017, 4G connections will account for 45% (5 exabytes/month) of mobile data traffic. In 2012, the average 4G connection generated 2.1 gigabytes of mobile data traffic per month, which is 19 times the 0.110 gigabytes/month for the average non-4G connection. By 2017, 4G traffic will grow 40-fold, a 109% CAGR. Doug Webster, vice president of service provider networking marketing, Cisco, noted that by 2017, global mobile data traffic would continue its “truly remarkable” growth, increasing 13-fold over the next five years, to reach an amount more than 46 times the total amount of mobile IP traffic just a few years ago in 2010. “With such dramatic adoption, we are rapidly approaching the time
when nearly every network experience will be a mobile one and, more often than not, a visual one as well. This trend is a result of the seemingly insatiable demand by consumers and businesses alike to achieve the benefits gained when connecting people, data, and things in an Internet of Everything,” he concluded. *An exabyte is a unit of information or computer storage equal to one quintillion bytes.
IPTV increases Canadian market share
IPTV in Canada is rapidly gaining momentum at the expense of incumbent cable and satellite services, with IPTV’s share of pay-TV subscriptions in the country rising to nearly to 10% in the third quarter of 2012. IPTV accounted for 9.6% of Canadian pay-TV video subscriptions in the third quarter, according to IHS Screen Digest Television Intelligence, from information and analytics provider IHS. This is up from 6.6% during the third quarter of 2011, and from 1.6% in the third quarter of 2007. Such an expansion will set the pace for IPTV’s portion of Canada’s subscriber base to rise to 18.1% by the end of 2017, in the process causing the combined share of competitive technologies—cable and satellite—to fall to 81.9%. “Canadian telcos are adding IPTV subscribers at a rapid clip as Telus and Bell Canada engage in large-scale buildouts of their infrastructure in order to reach more potential customers,” said Erik Brannon, analyst for television research at IHS. “IPTV will continue to make strong gains in Canada in the coming years, eroding the dominant position now held by the cable and satellite services.” Just as in the United States, IPTV's growth in Canada has come at the expense of cable and, to a lesser extent, satellite. Both cable and satellite continued to lose subscribers in the third quarter of 2012, each experiencing a 2% year-
over-year decline in subscriber growth compared to the third quarter of 2011. The response from Canadian cable operators has been muted so far, but there are signs they are not staying idle as subscribers go elsewhere. For example, Shaw Cable is betting on its massive Wi-Fi hot spot roll-out to reduce churn for its broadband service, and ultimately its video subscribers. Broadband service at Shaw is becoming a valuable component to its bundled services and will play a pivotal role in retaining pay-TV subs. Bell Canada in the third quarter reported explosive growth for its IPTV service, Fibe TV. Fibe TV added 42,973 net new customers to pass 200,000 for the first time, with net additions in the same quarter of 2011 amounting to 20,297. The company now accounts for 18% of IPTV subscribers in Canada, leaving Aliant, SaskTel and Manitoba Telecom (MTS) each with less than 10% of the market. Telus remains Canada's IPTV giant, holding 56% of the total Canadian IPTV market, with its service capturing 43% of the third quarter's IPTV growth. SaskTel, the first IPTV operator to enter the market in 2002, together with MTS held nearly an equal share of IPTV subscribers until Telus leapt ahead in 2010. If the rapid uptake of IPTV services from Bell Canada and Telus is any indication, there will be significant pressure upon incumbent pay-TV operators when they enter new markets. As a whole, Canada’s payTV industry has been able to fend off the threat from OTT services in large part due to strict data caps and limited OTT options. However, the situation could change if data caps start to loosen up and broadband subscribers continue to increase. Netflix, for instance, now has more than 1 million subscribers in Canada,
even though its content offerings are still relatively limited compared to the United States.
Streaming gaining with traditional viewers
According to The NPD Group, while traditional pay TV operators and broadcast networks still dominate the consumer television landscape, new options are emerging, from subscription video on demand (SVoD), to electronic sellthrough (EST), to free TV streaming. According to the firm, while SVOD drives the most online TV streams by far, the incidence of consumers who used SVOD and free streaming in 2012 was relatively equal. According to NPD’s Free Streaming TV report, 12% of US TV watchers reported streaming TV shows for free during the prior three months, compared to 14% who watched a TV show via SVOD. “Over half of the viewers for streaming TV are between the ages of 18 and 34, so the YouTube generation is evolving from short-form and user-generated content to TV shows and, like YouTube, they can watch where and when they want,” said Russ Crupnick, senior vice president of industry analysis at NPD. “Despi te the attention lavished on tablets and phones, an astonishing 83 per cent of free TV streaming programmes are viewed on a computer.” Nearly all US broadcast and cable TV networks offer free streaming of their programming via the Internet; however, based on NPD’s latest information, consumer usage of freestreaming TV sites varies. Hulu.com dominated free streaming TV, accounting for 43% of total streams during 2012. After Hulu, the five broadcast network sites (CBS.com, ABC.com, FOX.com, NBC.com, and CWTV.com) accounted for another 30% of total streams. Four cable TV sites - abcfamily.com, comedycentral.com, MTV.com, and
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