MNOs can use FMC retail plans to boost fixed broadband penetration in underdeveloped markets

Fixed broadband penetration remains lower than we might expect given the income levels in many countries, particularly middle-to-high income markets such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Malaysia. Many households in these countries rely purely on handset and/or Mi-Fi connectivity rather than fixed broadband. As such, the cellular data traffic per capita is very high. However, the increasing presence of fibre access networks means that this situation may not persist. Moreover, the ever-increasing mobile traffic means that mobile networks may become overly congested, thereby leading to poor performance. Mobile network operators (MNOs) in these markets therefore have a growing need to enter the fixed broadband segment. In this article, we assess how MNOs in these markets can use fixed–mobile convergence (FMC) retail plans to build revenue organically by boosting fixed broadband penetration among their existing mobile customer bases.