Commercial fibrecos and mobile netcos will flourish in the Asia–Pacific region

Operators across the Asia–Paciifc region will respond to stagnation in the telecoms markets with new initiatives to cut costs and seek new revenue.

The drive for cost efficiency in a stagnant mobile market is acute across Asia. As the importance of differentiated coverage diminishes, the option to share active network infrastructure and thereby reduce costs (and indeed environmental impact) becomes increasingly valuable. This transformation has already played out across Europe with significant commercial benefit for operators. 

Alongside this restructuring of the radio network to reduce costs, mobile operators are also hungry for opportunities to drive growth. We expect several mobile operators to become much more active in the (as yet underpenetrated) fixed broadband market in developing Asia–Pacific, boosted by the benefits of fixed-mobile convergence. This transition will create a wave of investments in fibre infrastructure,  for which there is also a strong imperative for infrastructure sharing in the form of commercial fibrecos. 

Pursuing a commercially-driven model of shared infrastructure - active RAN sharing through new mobile netco vehicles, and fibre sharing through fibrecos – is a complex but lucrative process that should be a major priority for operators across Asia.