【出版时间及名称】：2010年4月全球TMT行业研究报告
        【作者】：汇丰银行
        【文件格式】：pdf
        【页数】：70
        【目录或简介】：
Summary 1
Why WiFi? 7
Faster speed ≠more capacity 24
The search for spectrum 29
Capex smörgåsbord 36
Supply and demand 47
All quiet on the Eastern front 53
Winners & losers 55
Ericsson 60
Disclosure appendix 64
Disclaimer 68
Operators will exploit WiFi, but cellular capex must still rise
The proliferation of smartphones and laptop cards is starting to put mobile networks under real pressure.
We have drawn attention to this issue in a pair of thematics, The Capacity Crunch (December 2009) and
Frequonomics (February 2010). But it would be fair to say that our views have proven highly nonconsensual,
and hence the current document is intended to address some of the counter-arguments, as well
as to incorporate the latest industry developments.
The debate affects both operators and vendors. With regard to operators, a key question is whether capex
will need to increase. For example, some argue that – despite the need to upgrade bandwidth in response to
the proliferation of smartphones – operators will still not have to lift capex, because improved technology
will come to the rescue. But before responding to the detail of such suggested remedies for the capacity
crunch, it is first worth considering – simply from a higher-level vantage point – whether it is really
reasonable to suppose that capex can remain at its present, abnormally low level.
Our view has consistently been that capex is a managed number that is primarily set by finance
departments rather than engineers. Going into the recession, operators tried to ensure they could meet
their promises on free cash flow generation. Revenues were, of course, affected by economic conditions,
and this fed through to margins, but management teams were typically able to cut capex enough to offset
the macro-induced pressure on EBITDA. (This was why we argued in our Déjà vu thematic report of
February 2009 that the sector’s cash-flow generation would prove robust). In a sense, we are arguing now
simply for the reverse of this process: as economies begin to emerge from recession, better conditions are
likely to feed through into improved revenues and EBITDA. Our view is that much of the incremental
EBITDA will now be channelled into the capex projects that operators have been postponing for the past
18 to 24 months. Finance directors can countenance this now that they know FCF will not suffer unduly
as a result, and will consult their engineers as to where the spending is most needed – which we feel is on
the mobile side of the network. So, for example, besides increasing its capex budget for 2010 over 2009,
AT&T is also shifting its spending away from wireline and towards wireless.
Note, therefore, that our Overweight stance on Ericsson does not require capex/sales ratios to spike. Just
as operators smoothed FCF via the capex line going into the recession, so they are likely to do so coming
out. They will be assisted by the fact that most of their rivals stopped investing at the same time – which
is helpful as it implies that operators will not typically been penalised for under-spending. Meanwhile,
though, such is the gearing of vendors like Ericsson to higher spending by the operators that even
comparatively small changes at the latter can have an enormous impact on revenues and earnings.
What bearing might WiFi have on this? According to its more enthusiastic proponents, it should prevent
the capacity crunch altogether, by offloading most of the extra traffic onto fixed-line platforms before it
even hits the cellular network – and in the process potentially leave the mobile operators struggling as they
lose both voice and data traffic. However, there are two sets of problems with this idea: the first revolves
around practical issues; the second concerns at the place of WiFi and cellular within the value chain.
The first thing to highlight is the practical deficiencies of WiFi as any kind of broad coverage platform. Its
range and in-building penetration are inherently limited. So a service that depends on WiFi will lack ubiquity
– the key requirement of any mobility offering. The history of the mobile industry is littered with technologies
that offer either cheaper or more abundant bandwidth, but at the cost of coverage. They have typically failed.
WiFi itself has been reinvented in several different business models, but with disappointing results.
Furthermore, because of the wide frequency bands used by WiFi, it is difficult for more than three WiFi
base stations to operate smoothly in the same location. Most markets have more participants than this, so
not every operator would be able to provide full-coverage WiFi. Note also that each channel is practically
capable of supplying only around 20Mbps, which must be shared among all users. That might sound like
a lot of capacity, but laptop users in particular could easily chomp through it. And backhaul will continue
to be a constraint: a hotspot supporting 20Mbps is no use if the backhaul is an ADSL line working at 2 to
8Mbps. Other issues include roaming support, security concerns, and so on. Ironically, the widespread
deployment of WiFi might actually encourage higher usage of cellular. While traffic in the home and
perhaps in some public venues could be off-loaded onto WiFi, one probable result would be for users to
become accustomed to working with high-bandwidth applications – and more likely to continue using
them when they are on the move.
The second set of points to make about WiFi is its position in the value chain relative to cellular. Cellular
is the essential element of the service. WiFi is merely nice to have. To put it another way, a customer can
have mobile service without WiFi but not without cellular. In our view, the cellular bears often confuse
what is charged for with how it is charged. The what is the availability of service more or less