The following transcript has been edited for length and readability. Listen to the entire discussion here on The Broadband Bunch. The Broadband Bunch is sponsored by ETI Software.
Brad
Hello, everyone. In broadband land, I’m your host, Brad Hein, and welcome to another episode of The Broadband Bunch. Our guest today is Jeff Moore, the founder, and principal of the company Wave Seven Research. Wave seven provides its customers and subscribers with powerful insight, coverage, and analysis of the U.S. wireless market. This includes postpaid, prepaid, fixed wireless, and smartphone competition.
Brad
Both his clients and subscribers at Wave Seven Research receive an in-depth knowledge of what is really going on in the U.S. wireless market. In the past, Jeff worked at Sprint headquarters for 13 years, spending eight of those years leading the carrier’s competitive intelligence efforts to help better their market strategy. Jeff has contributed his knowledge to many conference speaking sessions at industry publications, but he currently is the conference director of the All Wireless and Prepaid Expo and is a columnist with Fierce Wireless. Jeff is also very active on social media, spreading his knowledge and research to everyone following his channels and feeds, which we will talk about today also. Jeff, welcome to the show.
Jeff
Thanks, Brett. Glad to be here.
Brad
Yeah, I know we have been talking for a while now about trying to find a break in your schedule and hours to find time to get some of your industry insights here on the broadband bunch. But I know you and I chatted and found out you’re from Lawrence, Kansas. Jayhawk, huh?
Jeff
That’s right. Yeah. We actually have a football team this fall.
Brad
I noticed you guys showed up on game day against TCU.
Jeff
Yeah, that was something from out of this world because the Jayhawks actually had not won more than three games since 2009. So, for them to be getting the game-day treatment is an undefeated football team was it was extraordinary.
Brad
Well, rock on, and also thank goodness for basketball Kansas right rock chalk.
Jeff
The current champions. Yes.
Brad
Very good. Very good. Well, when you and I initially spoke, I was really interested because I’ve spent a lot of my career in data analysis and collecting live data, historical data, and feeding it to ISPs in wisps so they could make better decisions. So as the whole world is clamoring for more data to make better decisions. Here is Jeff with a fabulous business.
Brad
Tell us a little bit more specifically about your time at Sprint and what shaped what eventually became Wave Seven.
Jeff
Yeah, So basically for eight years between 26 and 2014, I was the leader of Sprint’s competitive intelligence operations, gathering information about what’s really going on in the world and feeding that into Sprint executives to let them know. And when I left Sprint at the end of 2014, my standard joke is that I basically kept my job and kept doing exactly what I was doing before.
Jeff
So this is pretty close to the equivalent of Sprint’s competitive intelligence operation, just syndicated so that companies, you know, a lot of carriers and OEMs and investors subscribe to our research. And so telling them the real story about what’s going on in wireless and going well beyond the press releases and, you know, actually hitting the stores, access to an ad database, really talking to sources and telling the real story regardless of corporate press releases.
Brad
Got you. Got yourself. Share with our audience a little bit about what your customers and subscribers would receive from your service.
Jeff
Yeah. So we have two reports per month for most months on the postpaid market, on the prepaid market, on the smartphone market, and in the United States, and for fixed wireless, it’s a little bit different. It’s a quarterly PowerPoint deck that goes out.
Brad
Excellent. Excellent. And so what do you hear in the last year or two that are that’s driving a lot of that knowledge now? What are some of the movers and shakers in the market as of 2022?
Jeff
Well, just broadly stepping back, you know, obviously Sprint being acquired by T-Mobile and then in the consolidation inherent in that and the purchase of track phone by Verizon has been a big mover. So there’s been a lot of consolidation and a lot of change in the last couple of years.
Brad
Excellent, excellent. And so you recently also traveled to Las Vegas and gave a session where you spoke with a couple of other cohorts in the industry at the Whisper Whisper Palooza conference. Tell us a little bit about your experience at Whisper Palooza and then about your session.
Jeff
Yeah. So Whisper Palooza 2022 was it was a great event. Well attended. Good to actually, you know, get out, get out of Kansas and go shake hands with the actual wisps and talk to them and learn about what’s going on out there is a very well-attended event, a strong, strong sense of energy out there. But I guess, you know, when I spoke to the conference, my big picture was that fixed wireless has grown just extraordinarily just this year in terms of broadband ads.
Jeff
So when I say fixed wireless, to be clear, I do include T-Mobile and Verizon in this in this equation, because they certainly have led the way in terms of the ads. Even if we said Verizon and Verizon and T-Mobile aside, the wisps are growing on their own. You know, they’re about 2800 wisps out there and they’re growing. They’ve been growing at about a 15% pace, according to the Karmel Group.
Jeff
But setting those aside, the leadership really has been provided that T-Mobile and Verizon. So the most telling figures that I put up on the screen were that in 2000, in the first quarter, fixed wireless accounted for about 50% of net ads relative to the cable companies and the telcos. And these are figures put out by the Lightman group.
Jeff
And in 2002. Q They actually accounted for more than 100% of net ads with fixed wireless having 816,000 net ads compared to -60 K for the cable Co’s in -85 K for the telcos.
Brad
Wow. So clearly the industry is finding a new way to connect folks. And I’m assuming that’s because some of the industry comparisons are maybe it’s more affordable for these underserved areas to put up these fixed wireless networks. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Jeff
Yeah. So what’s really filling it is that T-Mobile and Verizon have both gotten very serious about it a lot. And I think that one of the big drivers there is the fact that both T-Mobile and Verizon have gotten their hands on some spectrum that they did not have before. So for T-Mobile, they get this 2.5 gigahertz spectrum. And I say this with a great sense of jealousy, having worked at Sprint for 13 years, that when they purchased Sprint, they gained an enormous volume of spectrum in the 2.5 gigahertz range.
Jeff
And T-Mobile has been very active in the last couple of years in lighting up its 2.5 gigahertz spectrum. And that gives them an enormous capacity to provide whatever they want to provide. And, you know, so in addition to providing a solid mobile experience and they’re very judicious, I think, in the way they use their spectrum. So they certainly they’re using the 2.5 gigahertz spectrum to provide broadband to customers they’re judicious in the way they do it.
Jeff
They’re not doing it in a crazy way in Verizon. Very similarly, they get their hands on some spectrum, The C-band spectrum, I believe they spent about $49 billion to acquire that. So it’s a separate amount of spectrum in addition to what they use for their mobile customers. And they’ve brought that online starting in January. So bringing this enormous volume of spectrum online is what really has enabled the telcos to provide a broadband experience broadly to the US public that they have not been able to provide before.
Brad
Right, Right. So clearly everyone wants to be connected. We keep seeing things in the industry and all the publishing that more and more and more everybody needs more connectivity, more bandwidth. So is that really true? What what is somebody in a rural area really need at a residential level just to be connected, to do some of the things they want to do?
Jeff
Yeah, I think that you know, people are arguing that fiber is the way to go. And I would agree that fiber is actually the greatest telecom invention ever. It truly is amazing and provides, you know, remarkable speeds, but it’s not a one size fits all world. Fiber can’t economically be extended to everyone. It’s much cheaper in many cases in rural America to extend fixed wireless technologies, which, by the way, are getting better and there’s more spectrum available for it and more federal funding.
Jeff
In many cases, it just makes more sense to extend fixed wireless. And then the other thing that I mentioned, so in addition to T-Mobile and Verizon having more spectrum that they can use to provide broadband services, they’ve actually gotten into the game a lot better than they had before. So if you look at T-Mobile’s pitch, sure, it’s $50 per month as the headline pitch, but they’ve actually been pitching it at a 30, $30 price point because if you bundle it in with the magenta max, you know, premium plans, you can bring the cost down from 50 bucks per month to 30 bucks per month.
Jeff
And why are you paying the cable company an arm and a leg when you could be paying T-Mobile $30 per month for your broadband connection, which is perfectly zippy? And Verizon is very similar. You know, under certain terms and conditions. You can get broadband from them for $25 per month if you have a Verizon Unlimited premium plan, you can get broadband from Verizon for $25 per month.
Jeff
And honestly, when I look at the applications of broadband, it’s so you can watch YouTube, so you can get your Netflix, so you can stream something. There’s no need to split atoms after you get beyond five or ten megs for one stream, yet you’re fine. You know, maybe you need 20 or 25 if you’re in your family streaming all at the same time and maybe gaming really I think that the wireless connections are more than adequate.
Brad
Great, great insight that it’s something that we continually hear. You know, we know there’s an evolution to this business model, especially in a rural community, that as well, I won’t say anything because as we know, there there is always the satellite play, right? You can always have a satellite in certain areas of the country instead of having to depend on a local whisper, an ISP.
Brad
Is that that that still true, right?
Jeff
Yeah, that is absolutely true. So the satellite aspect to this, I know that Starlink’s been getting a lot of press coverage and there’s a lot of talk about satellite. But when I take a step back, there are some pretty interesting numbers that popped up recently from Wells Fargo and they put out their idea of how it’s going to evolve in the future between 2021 and 2027.
Jeff
And they had satellite it 1% share as far as the eye can see. So my thought on this is that a lot of people yell and scream that, oh, there’s no broadband where I live. And my answer to that is that there’s actually a broadband connection wherever you can see the southern sky, because. Hewson, is a service provider right now, not even with, you know, setting StarLink and some of the other megatons solutions aside, you can get perfectly zippy broadband service from Usenet or from ViaSat or wherever you live, your advertising on TV, the offers are out there that if you ask the question, you know, the StarLink, the other mega-constellations
Jeff
that are out there, are they going to displace T-Mobile and Verizon? Are they going to displace the telcos in the cable shows? I don’t think so. I don’t think so, because it is not a better experience and it is more costly in most cases to have a satellite connection, but your point is well taken. Satellite connectivity is available everywhere.
Brad
Yeah, it is. It’s interesting talking about all these different technologies, you know, as we and as we get into our discussion, you know, we’ve already named different spectrums of fixed wireless. You know, you have satellite, you have cable connectivity. You know, we have fiber. And you mentioned earlier one, you know, there’s a perception that kind of the one size fits all.
Brad
Like there’s one process for everybody. That’s just not true. The more we learn, the different geographic areas with different parameters, serve different populations. You can’t just roll out the same old thing for every community out there. So at what point does maybe a local wisp start to consider fiber and because now they’re kind of for their forced with this challenger kind of effect where they’re going to have to manage hybrid networks at a certain point if they want to serve different areas.
Jeff
Yeah, I think that’s a good point. A lot of these local ISPs are finding that they do need to go with fiber in some areas in some cases their funding requirements, federal funding requirements, and state funding requirements, require them to roll out fiber. So they’re certainly gaining that expertise. And there’s actually been some discussion about changing the name of the conference because a lot of these providers are hybrid providers with fiber in addition to wireless and just making the decision on a case-by-case basis, depending on the density of the community, the local availability of fiber and other factors.
Brad
Right. And taking this a step further, it seems like some of the government funds are recognizing this, too. So they’re incentivizing fixed wireless carriers to consider this, you know, in their offering where maybe fiber is a requirement for a certain percentage of what they’re rolling out. Are you seeing this then across the country also?
Jeff
Yeah, I think that the wisps and providers are being pushed in the direction of the fiber. And I’m not sure that that’s a healthy thing because if you look at the figures, it’s actually much, much cheaper in most instances to rolling out fixed wireless coverage. And usually, that provides basically what people need. So I don’t think that’s a healthy thing.
Jeff
I don’t think it’s a one size fits all universe and we need to have the market settle. What’s the best solution in a given market?
Brad
So and you and I spoke earlier this week. There were some there was some information that came out about potentially some inaccuracies on mapping and data that was available when initially choosing some of the folks that received government money. We all know how important it is to have accurate mapping and data to tell us who should get that funding with what areas are served and underserved.
Brad
So what you’re saying is the fixed wireless connectivity is actually a bit more powerful and maybe denser than we actually believe it is?
Jeff
Yeah. I mean, I’m trying to square up what people are saying and, you know, government mapping and formal reports with some of the realities that we’re seeing out there on the ground. So recon analytics is a very good firm that does some pretty good research. And they recently this summer put out some information about which kind of form of activities have the highest net promoter scores.
Jeff
And actually fixed wireless was it was the technology that came in the first place. And you would think it would be fiber because that’s absolutely the superior way to provide broadband service. But when you look at the net promoter scores, actually fixed wireless came in first place with fiber coming in second place. And I think that you know, when you ask people do you appreciate your service is it the best service that’s out there?
Jeff
Fixed wireless came in the first place because I think that customer service and technical support are part of that experience. And those scores came in higher than the in scores for fixed for fiber and came in higher than the scores for cable goes.
Brad
Wow. That’s fabulous information, Jeff. Kind of looking a little bit further, the bigger picture out, you know, we’re starting to get to know these mega constellations, these businesses out there, some of the larger ones as fixed wireless starts to grow that way and is starting to prove that, you know, even from a consumer standpoint, it’s reliable. How do these folks, how these businesses start to play in this space?
Jeff
To me, they’re basically going to be niches going forward because the price performance of satellite connectivity is not equivalent to what a fixed wireless provider or a cable co or a telco can provide. So I think that the mega-constellations are out there, but Wells Fargo sees fixed wireless as these satellites here are being 1% as far as I can see.
Jeff
And I think they’re about right on that, that it’s a niche if you’re on the ocean, if you’re on a mountain, you know, the satellite mega-constellations are always out there, can provide ubiquitous connectivity. The other thing that I think is worth mentioning is that I think a lot of the satellite effort is not necessarily geared toward the United States, where we have, you know, relatively advanced connectivity.
Jeff
There are a lot of countries around the world where they don’t have connectivity, you know, in most places other than satellite. So I think a lot of this is addressed. If you know, it ships on the ocean and in countries with relatively poor connectivity.
Brad
Gotcha. Gotcha. So regarding folks, companies like StarLink, StarLink, and Elon Musk, then you would say there’s just a limited niche for them to support folks in the U.S. and worldwide.
Jeff
That relative relatively limited niche in the United States broadband market. Yes.
Brad
Gotcha. So what do you hear? You know, you’re the one that does all of that, the collecting of the data and your reporting on it. How are your customers with a ton of value? Do you ever differ from what comes out of the media and the folks in Wall Street who are, you know, telling folks where to invest?
Brad
How does that normally play out?
Jeff
Yeah, we sort of watch the trends. That’s when the advantage of Wave Seven research is that we don’t just watch the press releases. We actually hit the stores. We actually monitor the advertising and we are usually the first ones to break a story like one good example of that recently is that on September 19th, Xfinity actually launched its TV ad where they’re hitting at T-Mobile for T-Mobile’s 5G home Internet service.
Jeff
They actually launched an ad that shows a family that very much seems like vampires, and they make references to them being vampires. They wake up at 2 a.m. so that they can get adequate broadband speeds as opposed to a cable connection, which probably would provide a more consistent connection. So when Infiniti, the largest cable company in the United States, is launching advertising very specifically against a very specific competitor, you can tell that T-Mobile is really hitting home with its product.
Brad
Man, that’s great. It’s so good to have you on the podcast in an episode, Jeff. I think it’s something that we want to consider more of since, you know, on a quarterly basis you’re coming up with new data and sharing it. We’d love for you to consider coming back on the show and sharing what you can with our listeners.
Brad
Where do you see the future of all this going? There’s obviously there’s funding out there that we know needs to be spent in the next few years. How do you see wisps and ISPs responding, responding to all this money right now? And where do you see us in maybe five years?
Jeff
Well, you just being at whisper palooza, sort of solid dollar signs in the eyes of a lot of the wisps out there. Just to be candid with you, I think that there’s a lot of funding out there and a lot of these wisps are going to be using it to further their rollouts and build their empires. I did see a lot of investors at the Whisper Palooza conference.
Jeff
So, I think that there’s going to be more capital behind the wisps, and I think that there’s going to be probably some consolidation that’s going to be going on that not necessarily immediately, but within the coming years. And then the other thing that I think is worth bringing out is the fact that you don’t just have T-Mobile and Verizon rolling out broadband services, you know, the offers that I mentioned.
Jeff
So, $25 from Verizon, $30 from T-Mobile. But you actually have. So T-Mobile has more than 7000 stores. Well, guess what? Their subsidiary, which is metro by T-Mobile, also has 7000 stores. And in February, they started selling this product through their 7000 stores. And then by May, they had offers on it where you could get the first month free.
Jeff
You could get the gateway for $50 as opposed to 100 originally. So we’re just seeing these offers and pushes much more democratized than they had been before. And this is without even mentioning AT&T, which by the way, is only really getting down to business on their C-band rollout. And we’ll see what AT&T does with this. They’re primarily focused on fiber as a company, but they’re certainly lighting up a lot of their CPE and spectrum as well. And I’m eager to see what they do with it.
Brad
Man, great information. Great information. Well, as we start to wind down our episode today, Jeff, I want to thank you for joining us. I know we’re really just scratching the surface on this. We could really go on for a while, but hopefully, this is a teaser of some episodes to come between a broadband bunch and Jeff Moore. Before we leave now, Jeff, can you share how folks in the industry can get in touch with you in Wave Seven and maybe where they can follow you?
Jeff
Yeah, so I’m on Twitter at wave seven, Jeff. People can all just also just shoot me an email. Jeff Moore at wave seven research dot com and the deck that up presented it Whisper palooza is publicly available and I’ll be glad to shoot that back to anyone who’s interested.
Brad
That’s great. That’s great. And as a follower of your Twitter, there’s some great info on there for our listeners to dive into and look at what you’ve been creating. Well, that will do it for another episode here on the Broadband bunch. I want to thank our local listeners for joining and I want to thank Jeff Moore for sharing his insight and stories with us today.
Brad
And it’s all next time. Broadband land. I’m your host, Brad Hine. I won’t say goodbye but for a little while. So long. Thanks.
