Mobile Broadband in Sweden – Still Growing

Last year, I wrote about the explosive growth of mobile broadband in Sweden. According to the  National Post and Telecom Agency (PTS), which publishes an annual report on the state of the Swedish Telecommunications Market, the number of mobile subscriptions via data plug-in cards or USB modems increased from 92,000 to 376,000 (a growth rate of [...]

Is Mobile Broadband Profitable?

The consensus opinion is certainly that mobile broadband is not a profitable business (yet)  in Western Europe (especially in countries like UK) where mobile broadband prices are trending lower than fixed broadband prices. I have always wanted to do a quantitative analysis. 
The analyst firm Informa claims that fixed-line costs in Europe are near Eurocent 0.1-0.5 per [...]

3G for Consumer Gadgets?

The Journal had an article today titled, “Sprint Looks to Power Gadgets Beyond Cellphones” where it is reported that Sprint is talking to companies such as GPS device maker Garmin Ltd., Eastman Kodak Co. and SanDisk Corp. about delivering 3G/EV-DO service for their products. This won’t be the first time – if you have not [...]

Sony’s New Embedded 3G ‘NetBook’

I guess it was just a matter of time before Sony introduced its ‘netbook’ offering – though it insists that its new Sony Vaio P is not a netbook. Walter Mossberg reviews it on the Journal:
I love the look and feel and boldness of the design, but can’t recommend this sleek machine for most users [...]

3G Embedded Netbooks – Killer Product?

The relative success of Asus Eee PC has created a new product category – netbooks, also called Mobile Internet Devices (MID) or Ultra-Low Cost PCs (ULPCs). Never to shy away from new product hype, ABI research has promptly come out with a forecast calling for over 200 million of these little fellas by 2013. A quick note [...]

Can Mobile Operators Sell Laptops?

At the recent Citigroup Technology Conference, Dell’s CEO, Michael Dell indicated that the strategy for selling the company’s ‘netbooks’ would be via the wireless network operators – the former would be subsidized to consumers along with 3G service. Actually, this model is not new – Carphone Warehouse in UK has been giving away free laptops [...]

Deeper Dive into Mobile Broadband Growth in Austria

Austria shows that mobile broadband can be a significant threat to the old DSL-fixed line business. As shown in the Figure, the last three quarters for Mobilkom Austria have witnessed mobile broadband subscriptions exceed DSL subscriptions, thanks to a significant uptake in datacards / USB dongles and internet-enabled smart phones. The main driver for this [...]

Can Mobile Broadband Bite into Fixed Broadband?

Nielsen Mobile, a service of The Nielsen Company, reported that there were more than 13 million wireless data card users in the US as of Q2 2008. The interesting piece of information buried in the press release is that as many as 59 percent of the mobile data card users were willing to [...]

HSPA subscriber numbers – Reality Overtakes Hype

The GSMA, the global trade group for the mobile industry, releases a quarterly report on the growth (or lack of growth) of GSM, GPRS/EDGE, W-CDMA and HSPA subscribers, terminals and operators. In the latest report (August 2008), it announced that the number of worldwide subscribers using Mobile Broadband (HSPA) networks has topped the 50 million [...]