(4 January 2007 6:32 pm)

MUMBAI: Research and Markets has announced the addition of Wireless Broadband Services: The 4G Cellular Industry (part three of three) to their offering.

According to the study, the cellular industry invested over $13.7 billion (USD) in spectrum auctions. Today's cost for a cellular service with an average data communications service of 130 Kbps is about $80 a month.

To be competitive with the advances in WiMAX and Wi-Fi, the fee for 4G services will need to be lower than the cellular companies expect.

A better strategy for 4G operators would be to offer lower speeds with more capacity to handle more users as a bargain thereby fully loading the networks with subscribers.

Usage based offerings with specific services, offering niche services at moderate speeds, may turn out to be the most effective and profitable method to roll-out 4G.

Key findings of the study are

- The 4G services will need more MVNE's to support the OSS/BSS infrastructure.

- Revenues will reach $2.5 billion, $9.1 billion for cellular data and small business DSL respectively by 2011 Small business spending on internet access will grow to $8.2 billion by 2009, up from $4.4 billion in 2005, largely due to adoption of DSL and higher bandwidth services.

- Spending on wireless data services will outpace all other categories in the SOHO segment, growing to nearly $2.2 billion in 2009, up from $0.47 billion in 2005.