Wi-Fi to play larger role in Aussie telecom landscape

Wi-Fi will become an increasingly important component of Australia’s fixed and mobile telecom landscape, but fixed line connections will continue to drive traffic growth, a government report predicts.

The Bureau of Communications Research’s latest Leading Indicators Report indicates that there is a global trend of wireless start-ups using the potential of Wi-Fi to disrupt traditional telecom business models, by offering calls, text and data over Wi-Fi rather than the cellular network.

Mobile operators are also increasingly responding to this trend, with Optus launching its own service that allows voice and text over Wi-Fi in August, and Telstra rolling out a nationwide Wi-Fi network consisting largely of hotspots provided by its users via their own routers.

Mobile operators are also increasingly turning to Wi-Fi to address surging demand for data, by offloading traffic from the mobile network.

Research firm Maravedis Rethink expects the availability of public Wi-Fi globally to grow 700% between 2014 and 2018.

But it is fixed line access that is driving data consumption growth. Total data downloaded over fixed networks in Australia has grown from 140,000 terabytes in the last quarter of 2010 to 1.35 million terabytes in the second quarter of this year.

Mobile devices by comparison accounted for only 39,000 terabytes of traffic in the June quarter, or less than 3% of the total for fixed line data consumption.

Changes in technology and consumer behaviour are causing customers to shift to fixed line services with higher speeds and download limits. One example is the launch of Netflix in Australia, which caused a 50% jump in peering traffic through IX (internet exchange) Australia.

“For the consumer, demand for increased mobility will drive further supply of public Wi-Fi. However, fixed line access will continue to drive increasing data consumption rates,” the report concluded.

“For the operator, benefits will centre on offloading traffic from their mobile to Wi-Fi networks. As well as reducing costly mobile network investments, these traffic management techniques will help customer retention by improving coverage and overall network performance.”

Image courtesy of Dana Spiegel under CC