Mobile operators smell trouble
Mobile operators smell trouble: Data traffic is exploding, but revenue and profit isn't.
Computer Sweden has a very interesting article describing how the revenue per terabyte of mobile data at Telia Sonera - Swedens biggest mobile operator - did shrink from around 1 million Swedish crowns (about 100.000 Euro) in 2007 to less than 200.000 crowns in 2009. The competitor "3" today generates less than 50 percent of the revenue per terabyte of 2007.
On the other hand of course, the amount of terabytes sent has risen tremendously.
According to the Swedish Post and Telecom Agency (PTS), 9 percent of the customers are generating 88 percent of the traffic (I assume this figure refers to mobile usage only). These 9 percent are the so called "power users", and these are the people who mainly will be affected by the operators effort of moving away from flatrates to usage depending pricing for mobile subscriptions.
Another bad news for the fans of mobile data flatrates: Telenor, the only Swedish carrier that has no data cap yet, is the one that lost most revenue per terabyte of all four carriers on the Swedish market.
Times are tough...
