Carrier Wrap: Wholesale market set to boom; SK Telecom, Ericsson partner on 5G

Editor’s Note: Wireless operators are a busy bunch, and as such RCR Wireless News will attempt to gather some of the important announcements that may slip through the cracks from the world’s largest carriers in a weekly wrap-up. Enjoy!
–Wireless carriers could be in for a bit of a windfall as increased traffic volumes are expected to counter falling prices to grow wholesale revenues.
According to Ovum, the global wholesale telecommunications market will be worth $142 billion in 2019, accounting for 6.6% of total telecom revenues, an increase from 5.5% in 2012. That growth is expected to be driven by the Asia-Pacific region, where wholesale services are expected to grow from 17% of revenues in 2012, to 26% in 2019. Ovum cited specific growth in Malaysia, South Korea and a booming mobile virtual network operator market in China due to the recent licensing of 19 MVNOs.
North American and European based operators topped the list of top 20 wholesalers in 2012, with Ovum citing only three based in Asia-Pacific, one in the Middle East and Africa region and none in Latin America. However, David James expects this picture to change with the rise of domestic and international wholesale in Asia-Pacific.
“We expect at least one Chinese carrier to be among the top 20 wholesalers by revenues in 2019, although North America and Europe will continue to dominate the list,” explained David James, practice leader for Ovum’s wholesale research channel.
Ovum did note that the bounty will be concentrated among a “small number of large players,” with 2012 results showing the five largest wholesalers collecting more than one-third of the global total.
—SK Telecom signed an agreement with Ericsson to conduct joint research on “5G-related technologies” geared towards demonstrating “5G” services during the 2018 Winter Olympic Games scheduled to be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
As part of the agreement, the two companies cited what they termed “essential” technologies for the move to 5G services, including “next generation small cell, ultra-wideband,” low latency technology of one millisecond geared towards remote driving, FDD/TDD convergence technology and gigabyte-level data transmission technology.
The two companies have been working together on SK Telecom’s deployment of LTE-Advanced services, including the carrier’s push into carrier aggregation. The firms were also part of a joint agreement last month with the European Commission and South Korea on plans to work towards a common 5G definition.
Even before signing the MOU, the two companies had closely worked together preparing for the era of 5G, for example, by demonstrating 5Gbps, the world’s fastest LTE-based network speed in the 15GHz bandwidth on July 2.
–Enterprise-focused mobile virtual network operator Cbeyond said it has started offering mobile devices compatible with Sprint’s multi-spectrum Spark LTE service.
The company said the line up includes the Samsung Galaxy S5, Samsung Galaxy Note 3, LG G2 and the NetGear Zing Mobile Hotspot. Those devices are compatible with Cbeyond’s cloud-based TotalCloud Phone System and Communications on the Go solution. Cbeyond is in partnership with Sprint through a previous agreement with Clearwire, which Sprint purchased control of last year.
Cbeyond earlier this year announced plans to be acquired by Birch Communications for $323 million. The proposed deal will merge the Atlanta-based companies into what Birch claims will be a “nationwide communications, cloud and managed services provider with approximately $700 million in annual revenue and approximately 200,000 business customers located in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Canada and Puerto Rico.” The merged entity will control approximately 10,000 fiber route miles, more than 500 fiber-lit buildings, 570 collocations and five data centers.
—U.S. Cellular said it has begun offering its postpaid services through 83 RadioShack locations across 12 states, including California, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Missouri, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Virginia, Wisconsin and West Virginia. The regional carrier said those locations will offer up a variety of devices, including the Apple iPhone 5S and Samsung Galaxy S5.
—AT&T announced enhancements to its Toggle service, noting an improved user experience and new applications for the “bring-your-own-device” focused service, as well as the availability of AT&T’s Mobile Share and Mobile Share Value plans.
The company said that the Toggle App Ecosystem applications are designed to allow enterprise customers to self-manage solutions, while also allowing IT managers to self-provision the use of new devices on the network.
—AT&T also announced that technology investor Glenn Hutchins had joined its board of directors where he will serve on the corporate development and finance committee. Hutchins is co-founder and former co-CEO of technology focused investment firm Silver Lake.
AT&T is set to announce second quarter financial results on July 23.
Additional carrier news can be found on the RCR Wireless News “Carriers” page.
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