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United States: United States Communication Profile 2012

2012/04/05

United States Communication Profile 2012

09/11/2010 The cable companies are still leading from the broadband market, with growth of cable modem subscribers than DSL growth in 2009/10, against the trend for most of the last decade. This is partly explained by the fact that phone companies focused on their FTTH deployments. Cable companies continued to be the beneficiaries of the losses of the fixed telephone subscriber numbers with VoIP cable should continue its strong growth in 2011/12.

In the mobile market, WiMAX and LTE 4G platforms open access to which Clearwire and Sprint-Verizon Wireless and AT & T Mobility, respectively, are committed, have great potential for the evolution of the increased use mobile broadband.

The telecommunications industry is the economic downturn, with total revenues of the industry growing in single digits during 2009 and early 2010. A number of sectors, including sectors of the mobile and broadband, have a growth which is much higher than the broader economic growth.

Market Highlights:

Total revenue for the telecommunications industry should grow by about 10% during 2010 to reach about 1.4 billion. Growth will continue to be supported by the adoption of broadband and mobile data services.
Mobile phone usage has been increasing use of data on mobile voice services. Specifically, during 2009 the mobile data traffic surpassed voice traffic moving for the first time. In addition, the mobile data traffic should increase by a compound annual growth rate of over 100% over the next five years.
The number of mobile-only households exceeded the number of fixed-only households. In 2010 the number of customers will still continue to fall, after falling nearly 10% in 2009.
In early 2010, major cable companies have reported about 22 million subscribers. Although VoIP has been making strong inroads into the revenues of telcos' fixed, the growth of VoIP subscribers in 2009 was only 6%, down almost 35% last year. This is partly explained by the increasing penetration of non-service providers such as Skype, the VoIP market.
The number of homes passed by FTTH approached 18.5 million, representing approximately 13% of all households. Cable homes, nearly six million were connected, after rising more than 50% in 2009 and with a turnout of about 31% against 27% a year earlier.
US continued to drag around 15th on the tables of the OECD's broadband penetration, down to 4th place in 2001. In addition, the U.S. ranks around 23rd OECD countries in terms of broadband speeds and paths also mean accessibility.
The market is currently witnessing significant investment in the activity of FTTH deployments, DOCSIS 3.0 upgrades, deployment of WiMAX and broadband municipal wireless business. For example, in early 2010 an estimated 45% of 120 million in the cable industry's footprint of households had received DOCSIS 3.0 upgrades.
Important policy statements were made by the Obama administration and the FCC, which indicate that policy makers and regulators are concerned about the slow pace of evolution to broadband in the United States. In particular, in March 2010, the FCC released The National Broadband Plan which offers a visionary new direction for American telecommunications, including cross-sectoral approach to broadband networks. Nevertheless, it is up to Congress to take action through legislation, otherwise it will be impossible to implement the Plan at any time.
A number of municipal WiFi projects have encountered difficulties in 2008/09, by 2010, it became increasingly clear that significant demand for iPhones and WiFi-enabled smartphones, netbooks and other devices WiFi-compatible exceed the capacity of cellular networks and would boost the business models for networks WiFi-equipped.
USA is still considered the first country to adopt WiFi services, accounting in 2010 for nearly 70,000 public WiFi hotspots. It is estimated that the number of free WiFi hotspots will grow by about 15% in 2010, bringing the proportion of free public access points to more than half the total.

Communications

Tremendous advances in communications technology have been made since the 1960's, notably the use of artificial satellites to relay television, telephone, and other transmissions. The Communications Satellite Corporation (COMSAT), a privately owned American company, provides international, maritime, and domestic communications satellite services—linking the United States with most countries of the world.

Unlike communication facilities in most other countries, those in the United States are, for the most part, privately owned and operated, with the federal government serving as a regulatory body. Only the postal service is operated by the federal government.

Television and Radio

Virtually all households in the United States have television sets, the great majority of which are color sets. Four major commercial TV networks—ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox—broadcast nationally, and there are more than 1,000 local commercial stations, most of them affiliated with the major networks. Commercial stations receive their revenue from advertisers. There is also a public television service—PBS—which is funded by the federal government and private sources. Cable television, available in most parts of the country, is operated on a subscription basis. AM and FM radio stations, most of them supported by advertising revenue, numbered about 10,000 in the early 1990's.

Newspapers

Periodicals, and Books. Roughly 1,700 daily newspapers and 8,200 weekly newspapers are published in the United States. In major cities, there are also foreign-language dailies. Virtually all the newspapers have regional readerships; only a few, notably the Christian Science Monitor, the New York Times, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal, are circulated nationally.

The number of periodicals and books published in the United States has increased dramatically since the 1950's. Today, there are more than 11,300 periodicals, and each year more than 46,000 new book titles and editions are published.

Telephone Service

The telephone is one of the most extensively used means of communication in the United States. Virtually every household has telephone service. Seven major regional companies and about 1,300 local companies, which are regulated by the states, provide wiring and local connections. American Telephone and Telegraph, General Telephone and Electronics, MCI Communications, US Sprint, and many smaller companies provide long-distance service.

Benchmarking broadband

The USA , as many other countries, has introduced economic stimulus packages that include telecoms infrastructure. It has now been widely accepted that such investments should deliver economic multiplier effects; it should stimulate economic growth, e-business, e-health, tele-education, smart grids as well as high-speed Internet access. This can only happen when these investments are linked to business models based on an open wholesale network. The telco and cable monopolies and duopolies as they exist in America will stop any economic multiply effect.

Broadband Market - Cable modem & DSL

Unlike most OECD countries, where DSL tends to dominate, the majority of subscribers in the US broadband market are cable subscribers. Although DSL has in recent years been gaining on cable, that trend was reversed, at least temporarily, in 2008. Although competing technologies such as FttH and WiMAX are growing relatively quickly, broadband competition in each region is still generally limited to one DSL and one cable operator. The DSL segment remains dominated by AT&T and Verizon, which account for around 80% of DSL subscribers, while cable broadband is only slightly less concentrated with three companies, Comcast, Time Warner and Cox, accounting for around 75% of cable broadband subscribers.

Compounded by economic recession, DSL and cable modem growth rates are expected to decline over the next five years as household penetration reaches saturation and fibre networks become widely deployed.

Broadband Market - Fibre to the Home (FttH)

However, in recent years the USA has been witnessing a more concerted fibre deployment effort. Verizon has adopted FttH, whilst AT&T has elected to pursue primarily FttN with FttH for new developments and multiple dwelling units. In addition, the smaller competitor carriers continue to deploy fibre deeper into their networks.

Significantly, an increasing number of municipalities are sponsoring FttH networks, and the recent FCC National Broadband Plan envisages an increasingly important role for public FttH networks in the pursuit of the National Broadband Plan goals.

By early 2010, the estimated number of homes connected to FttH networks approached twenty million with a take-up rate of around 30%. However, this still positions the US fibre penetration levels at less than a quarter that of global fibre leader South Korea. In addition, the country's fastest and largest fibre network, Verizon's FiOS, will be slowing its rate of deployment after 2010, following the sale of its fixed network assets in some 14 states. Nevertheless, with strong government backing, the aspirations of the National Broadband Plan could be met.

If so, this would ensure over the next 10 years that the USA catches up with Asia in FttH deployments and its attendant community and commercial benefits.

Broadband Market - Wireless Broadband

The wireless broadband market continued to witness rapid developments throughout 2008. Whilst WiFi and WiMAX asserted themselves as the major wireless broadband technologies, the competitive threat from Long Term Evolution became more apparent as specifications for standardisation of the new technology neared completion at end-2008. WiFi hotspots continued to open across the country, becoming commonplace in airports, cafes, offices and homes. Although several high profile municipal WiFi projects experienced difficulties, the number of cities and towns with WiFi networks continued to grow.

WiMAX received a boost with the ITU's decision to certify it as a 3G technology, thereby strengthening its position against other cellular 3G services such as HSDPA. In October 2008 Sprint Nextel and Clearwire officially launched their WiMAX network in Baltimore, Maryland. Whilst WiMAX is on the verge of a substantial nationwide deployment, it is likely that LTE will become the leading wireless broadband technology by 2012.

Convergence - Digital TV & IPTV

Although the FTA networks, such as ABC, CBS, and NBC all offer digital and increasingly High Definition TV programming, for many years they have been losing audience share to the cable and satellite TV networks. The Big Three are expected to continue to lose market share to the DBS and cable providers as well as, incrementally, to the telcos' IPTV networks. The US now has one of the highest rates of pay-TV penetration in the world. The market is thus moving to a triple play model in which the telcos, with their expanding fibre network deployments and new IPTV offerings, are likely to become a major force. By 2009 there were nearly 100 million pay-TV (or Multichannel Video Programming Distributors) subscribers in the US, amounting to over 85% of households.

Main lines

Year:

2008

Number:

150 million

Comparison to the world:

Mobile cellular

Year:

2008

Number:

270 million

Comparison to the world:

Telephone system

General assessment:

a large, technologically advanced, multipurpose communications system

Domestic:

a large system of fiber-optic cable, microwave radio relay, coaxial cable, and domestic satellites carries every form of telephone traffic; a rapidly growing cellular system carries mobile telephone traffic throughout the country

International:

country code - 1; multiple ocean cable systems provide international connectivity; satellite earth stations - 61 Intelsat (45 Atlantic Ocean and 16 Pacific Ocean), 5 Intersputnik (Atlantic Ocean region), and 4 Inmarsat (Pacific and Atlantic Ocean regions)

Radio

Value:

AM 4,789, FM 8,961, shortwave 19

Year:

2006

Television

Value:

2，218

Year:

2006

Internet country code:

.us