We believe Telstra has stolen a lead on its competitors with the launch of Air. We believe this network will be hard to replicate and will therefore drive customer retention and acquisition benefits for Telstra. WiFi is also increasingly important to help manage network capacity pressure while providing new revenue opportunities to telcos (critical given the pressure on core telco revenue).
WiFi is likely to play an increasingly important role for telcos given capacity constraints on mobile network. We also believe WiFi will increasingly be used to differentiate customer propositions (across both mobile and fixed broadband) and as a source for new revenue streams in its own right. This report looks at the launch of Telstra Air and the implications for Australian telcos.