Similarities in Worldwide Fiber Offers
While fiber-based services offered by ISPs vary quite a bit, certain similarities exist in price, packaging (access alone or in combination with telephony and/or television, possible limitation on the amount of data downloaded per month) and segmentation in terms of speed exist across countries in commercial FTTx access.
Trends at the international level include:
- The highest speeds are offered in Asia-Pacific countries
- Packaged triple-play type offers (telephony + Internet + TV) are far from being the general rule and are supplanted by double play, especially in Europe
- The lowest prices apply in Europe and Asia-Pacific, the highest in North America and certain Middle Eastern countries
Offers Based First on Segmentation of Speeds and Services, Then on Bundling
In order to enhance their optical fiber infrastructures, operators generally choose to offer different ranges of access speeds to their customers, generally up three to five different download speeds.
To this speed segmentation is added segmentation of services, in particular TV and video services. In most cases, operators offer a basic package of TV channels, which can then be added to by thematic channels, dedicated packages, video catalogs etc.
Telephony is now most often seen as a commodity and players who multiply the corresponding offers are rare. Several types of telephony offer can be identified (limited or unlimited national, fixed international, including calls to mobiles or not etc.) but few operators offer several of them.
The impact of the segmentation of services on the method of marketing and ultimately on prices is noticeable. Bundles are not as universal as all that and, in some countries, operators communicate separately about different services from their catalogue and may then offer package deals. Some operators go as far as to offer customers the possibility of constructing of their own personalised bundle in accordance with their needs.
Innovation of Services Based on the Technical Possibilities of Optical Fiber Networks
Since the first deployments of FTTx-type networks operators have argued about their technical performances and the benefits that they provide to end users. This has gradually resulted in the emergence of new services, most often associated with the innovative features of terminal equipment.
To continue to expand the commercial potential of FTTH/B, operators could, if not providing "exclusive FTTx" applications, rely on the other technical characteristics of FTTH/B, including symmetry and the possibility of guaranteed speeds, which has been reserved for professional clients. To these can be added reduced latency to provide high-performance access to Cloud services for residential and small business use.
Comments
Read what others have to say, and share your own thoughts with the community.