Austria Profile | Point Topic Subscribers
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Point Topic Austria Overview Austria 28 Nov 2016 Broadband Competitive Landscape Incumbent A1 Telekom Austria remains the dominant player in the fixed broadband market, with a 61 per cent share of subscriptions in Q2 2016. Its main competitor is Liberty Global's subsidiary UPC, with a 20 per cent share. Tele2 follows as a distant third with 4 per cent, while the remaining share of 15 per cent is shared by smaller players. In the xDSL market, the incumbent's retail arm has steadily strengthened its market leadership since 2008, increasing its share of DSL/VDSL subscriptions to 90 per cent by the end of Q2 2016. This domination can be attributed to the price reductions introduced by A1 in late 2007, which were, in turn, a response to competition from aggressively priced mobile broadband offers. Despite the introduction of lower wholesale charges for bitstream and LLU access, on the whole it became significantly more difficult for alternative operators to fight back against the incumbent, UPC and very competitive mobile broadband providers such as Drei Austria. In the cable market, the largest cable provider UPC continues the consolidation of smaller operators. UPC's network is fully DOCSIS 3-enabled, offering up to 250 Mbps broadband in the capital city of Vienna, the regional capitals of Graz, Klagenfurt, Innsbruck, and two smaller cities in the Vorarlberg region. In some areas, regional electricity providers are also actively participating in the broadband market as beneficiaries of the subsidy schemes set out in Austria's national broadband plan. As FTTP deployment throughout the country has been slow compared with the rest of Europe, with just under five per cent of population covered at the end of 2015, A1 Telekom announced that it will allocate EUR 400 million to the expansion of the national fibre network between 2015 and 2018. In 2014 A1 Telekom already started upgrading access networks to offer customers faster broadband services. The incumbent installed FTTC, FTTB and FTTH platforms along with VDSL Vectoring, which has increased the available bandwidth. [85339] [95271] [98018] [100646] Mobile Market Overview There are three mobile network operators in the country: A1 Telekom Austria (formerly Mobilkom), T-Mobile Austria and Hutchison Drei Austria, under the 3 brand. The latter merged with Orange Austria in 2013, more than doubling its market share. At the end of Q4 2015, A1 Telekom had a 40.5 per cent market share. T- Mobile followed with 28 per cent, Hutchison Drei claimed 27.9 per cent of the market. The remaining 3.6 per cent (490,000 subscribers) were attributed to mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) and airtime resellers. The country ended December 2015 with 1.01 million LTE-enabled SIM cards, up from 440,000 three months earlier and 162,000 as of 31 December 2014. A1 started rolling out LTE at the end of 2010 using 2.6 GHz spectrum, in close competition with T-Mobile, while Drei Austria introduced its first LTE commercial offers a year later. Since 2013 Austria's mobile market has undergone rapid changes, especially since the completion of the multiband auction for 800/900/1800 MHz 18/01/18 © Point Topic 2018 1 / 8 Point Topic Austria Overview spectrum, which saw A1 securing half of the 28 available frequency blocks. T-Mobile and Drei Austria acquired nine and five blocks respectively. A1 started using 800 MHz spectrum to extend its LTE footprint and by mid-2016 had reached 75 per cent population coverage. At the end of 2014, A1 started the deployment of LTE-A using carrier aggregation technology. In 2015, T-Mobile's 4G LTE footprint covered three quarters of the country and it has continued the extension of their network with a further EUR 300 million investment with the aim of providing 97 per cent coverage by the end of 2016. During the same period, Drei carried out extensive upgrades to their LTE network and by August 2015 had 98 per cent coverage. In a significant development, A1 announced in mid-2016 that it is investing EUR 500 million in the expansion of broadband coverage in urban and rural areas by upgrading both its fixed line and 4G LTE networks. The firm is using so-called ‘hybrid boost technology’ to combine both fixed and mobile technologies to create a new single product which offers maximum down/upload speeds of 100Mbps/20Mbps and is able to reach 92 per cent of Austrians. [85339] [85340] [91465] [95271] [98020] [100650] [100651] [100656] Pricing & Tariffs 123 ADSL ADSL2+ 100 Cable Modem, ) Unknown D S DOCSIS3.0 U ( FTTH, VDSL n o i t FTTx p i r FTTx, VDSL c s VDSL b u S y l h t n o M 10 50 100 Downstream Mb/s Subscriber statistics 18/01/18 © Point Topic 2018 2 / 8 Point Topic Austria Overview 2,000,000 Cable Modem DSL 1,500,000 FTTH FWA Satellite 1,000,000 500,000 0 2016Q2 2016Q3 2016Q4 2017Q1 2017Q2 2017Q3 Technology 2016Q2 2016Q3 2016Q4 2017Q1 2017Q2 2017Q3 Cable Modem 802,430 810,381 819,458 825,470 831,193 838,538 DSL 1,610,539 1,603,074 1,620,395 1,614,570 1,608,725 1,602,657 FTTH 33,700 38,000 41,000 42,600 44,100 45,700 FWA 29,100 28,900 28,700 28,700 28,700 28,700 Satellite 591 600 612 622 627 637 2016 August – A1 plans to roll out a new FTTB network to around 30,000 households and apartments in Graz within the next twelve months. The new infrastructure will offer download speeds of over 100Mbps. A further 20,000 homes in less densely built-up areas, including Wetzelsdorf, Webling, Andritz and Mariatrost, will gain access to FTTC infrastructure at a later stage. [100653] July – In August 2015 the Regulatory Authority for Telecoms and Broadcasting approved the refarming of the 2100 MHz frequency band, which until now was used for 3G UMTS, for immediate 4G LTE use. The Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology also announced in the same month, that from 2020 it will free up spectrum in the 700 MHz band for mobile use with the aim of increasing mobile penetration in the country. February – ZTE signed Pre5G Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Hutchison Drei Austria (Drei) to build the first ‘Pre5G’ trial site in Europe. ZTE’s Pre5G Massive MIMO base station will be commercially available on a large scale in 2016. [100648] 2015 December – A1 Telekom will deploy Alcatel-Lucent’s G.fast and Vplus broadband access technologies, enabling the acceleration of FTTB and FTTC deployments. [98018] 18/01/18 © Point Topic 2018 3 / 8 Point Topic Austria Overview December – UPC will be expanding its cable network in Upper Austria with the completion of its acquisition of Cable TV Stadl-Paura which has operated in the region for 22 years. Their cable network will be integrated gradually into the HFC network of UPC in spring 2016. [98018] December – Liberty Global, the parent company of UPC Austria and UPC Cablecom in Switzerland will be rebranding the two companies under one common brand name of UPC. Since August 2014, the two companies were relocated to one central operating location in Zurich, Switzerland. [98018] October – A1 Telekom announced that in 2015 its broadband customer base saw a year-on-year growth of 4.9 per cent. The growth was driven by the increasing demand for 16 Mbps and 30 Mbps products. [98018] August – The regulator has decided to reallocate existing frequency usage rights in the 2.1 GHz range. From now on these frequency bands may also be used for LTE (4G). All mobile network operators will benefit from the liberalisation of the 2.1 GHz frequency range. [98020] July – Drei has completed upgrades to its network in 442 municipalities of the upper Austrian region which has supplied the area with LTE coverage and speeds of up to 150 Mbps. [98020] March – Tele2 will be adding mobile services to its bundles of broadband, fixed-line telephony and TV. It operates as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) through an agreement with T-Mobile. [98020] March – As a result of A1 Telekom losing more than 290,000 customers in 2014, which the operator believes was partly due to the large number of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), it launched a new tariff on its budget mobile brand Bob, which offers 2,000 minutes, 2,000 SMS as well as 3 GB of mobile data at up to 7 Mbps for EUR 14.90 per month. [98020] 2014 December – Hutchison Drei Austria has further extended its 4G LTE network to Klagenfurt and Villach in the state of Carinthia. The deployment means that Drei has extended 4G coverage to 60 per cent of the population, beating its previous year-end prediction of 50 per cent population coverage. [95271] December – Cable provider UPC has entered the mobile market as a MVNO utilising the Drei network. [98020] November – Tele2 plans to re-enter the Austrian mobile market in H2 2015. The operator launched its new pay-TV product in Austria last week, and the re-introduction of mobile will enable it to offer a full portfolio of services. [95271] November – A1 Telekom Austria has launched its LTE-A network in Graz using carrier aggregation (CA) technology. The new network uses frequency in the 800MHz and 2600MHz bands, supporting theoretical downlink speeds of up to 300Mbps. [95271] 18/01/18 © Point Topic 2018 4 / 8 Point Topic Austria Overview November – Hutchison Drei Austria (formerly H3G) has extended its 4G LTE network to the state of Vorarlberg, including state capital Bregenz, and the municipalities of Dornbirn, Feldkirch, Horbranz, Gofis, Wolfurt and Rankweil.