05. Safeguarding the telecoms growth story Although there is much to look forward to in terms of service innovation, with telecommunications acting as a force for change in more ways than ever before, the implications for long-term industry growth remain far from clear. While the telecoms sector has proved resilient during the downturn, the long-term dynamics of the industry are a source of continued anxiety. Price deflation remains pronounced across all segments, fixed-line revenues remain under pressure from substitution to mobile, and mobile operators are feeling the effects of mobile termination and roaming rate reductions. Looking ahead, operators will have to cope with high levels of bandwidth demand: global IP traffic is set to increase fivefold by 2013, with mobile data traffic doubling every year.7 As such, operational excellence is absolutely vital and formed one of the key messages in the series of sessions on Mobile Broadband 2010+. Network sharing has a number of benefits, from offsetting competitive intensity in well-penetrated markets to bridging the digital divide in developing countries. In a prospective LTE environment, it may become even more mission critical as highlighted by the announcement of a 4G network sharing agreement in Sweden.8 “The demand for capacity will expand as fast as you can provide the capacity.” Forum speaker 7Cisco Visual Networking Index 2008-20013, 9 June 2009 8Telenor Telenor and Tele2 to build joint 4G network in Sweden 14 April 2009 ITU Telecom W 13 orld 2009 — Ernst & Young‘s post-conference review