Combining mobile broadband with DSL
Mobile broadband providers should bundle their packages with their DSL broadband service to benefit both the consumers and the service providers, according to Analysys Mason, the global adviser on telecom, IT and media services. The report points out how O2 broadband has managed to achieve higher sales growth both in its ADSL and mobile broadband products using this strategy.
O2 broadband, currently, offers free home cheap unlimited broadband (8Mb) for twelve months to its customers who take its entry level mobile broadband package for £20 per month. The mobile broadband package offers 1.8Mbps download speed and usage allowance of 3GB per month.
Apart from the surge in uptake of O2 broadband offers the bundling of these services also helped the UK ISP to meet the growing demands on the mobile networks.
Matt Hatton, a broadband expert at Analysys Mason explains:
“Most mobile network operators (MNOs) – rightly – continue to be concerned that the traffic generated by the rapidly increasing numbers of mobile-broadband subscribers will make unsustainable demands on their network. MNOs should be considering ways to offload as much traffic from the wide-area network as possible. Combining mobile broadband with DSL brings benefits in the form of reducing traffic load on the wide-area network.
Bundling DSL and Wi-Fi with mobile broadband subscriptions should allow a large volume of ‘mobile-broadband’ data traffic to be offloaded from the macro network. Furthermore, as we have seen with voice contracts, most bundling will encourage customer loyalty and reduce churn, albeit with a risk of cannibalising revenue.
