On the Q2 2013 earnings call (here at Seeking Alpha) Fran Shammo, VzW EVP & CFO, states “… we are very comfortable with our spectrum holdings, and we are in good shape for three to four years.” What has happened to make this so?
1. LTE brings higher capacity and throughput – but also higher data consumption
2. AWS spectrum – higher frequency spectrum means smaller cell footprint, and fewer subscribers per cell = higher bps/subscriber
3. Policy and Pricing – get away from flat rate pricing and let users self-select data usage
4. Refarming CDMA spectrum to LTE as needed
Of these four, I’d suggest the Policy and Pricing are instrumental for the subscriber to make economic value decisions, and additional LTE spectrum does the rest. That Verizon Wireless “… can actually take very small slivers out of that CDMA spectrum and reallocate that to our 4G LTE spectrum” is affirmation of plans for LTE-A, where these “slivers” of spectrum are aggregated into something more compelling.
This is but the next step toward making the massively distributed Super-Computer called Verizon Wireless, but we haven’t seen anything yet. Wait and see what happens if they evolve to policy-driven, software-defined ThinkingNetworksTM.
Get deep insights into the evolution of mobile broadband from ABI’s Telco Software, Optimization & Monetization research service.
