Increasing Allowance Drives Growth of Mobile Broadband in Europe: Study

Over the past 12 months European mobile broadband providers have more than doubled their user allowance and thereby brought down the cost of the service by four per cent, says a research report from Tariff Consultancy.

 

Today the average allowance, according to the researchers, stands at 3.9GB, up from 1.8GB 12 months ago.

In U.K., the cost of mobile broadband fell by an amazing 35 percent, the report noted. Nevertheless, what is driving the growth of user base is the allowance packages.

 

The report says Mobile Broadband flat rate bundles are now the norm across Europe and are the most common form of price package.

 

In today’s Europe, at least 20 mobile operators offering an "unlimited" user allowance to accelerate the growth of their subscriber base.

 

The most common monthly user allowance price point on offer across Europe is now 5GB and 10GB, closely followed by 1GB and 500MB allowances.

 

Average Mobile Broadband prices have fallen by as much as 53 percent, 43 percnet and 35 percent in Latvia, Austria and the U.K. respectively over the past year.

 

In Ireland, Germany, Sweden and Spain average Mobile Broadband prices are now significantly lower than the most popular fixed line DSL Broadband service.

 

With more mobile operators deploying HSDPA networks - capable of supporting downloads of up to 7.2MB - the increase in flat rate packages is likely to continue, the report says.

 

However, Margrit Sessions, managing director of Tariff Consultancy, warns that mobile operators have to ensure that they provision the network capacity to meet the demand and also develop safeguards against over-selling their service.

 

To prolong the success, the researcher suggests, operators must improve network coverage, offer Wi-Fi bundle and adopt a more transparent pricing scheme.