Why are mobile companies pricing themselves out of competing with regular broadband companies because they keep their prices to high?
So why arent mobile phone companies a viable option for people who want broadband?
The scarce resource in any mobile telecoms is the spectrum - shared amongst all the users covered by the cell. The 20MHz of spectrum (for example) transmitted by a cell is all that can be used - whether there is 1 user or 100 users.
We often see that 4G LTE has some huge peak speeds ... and we can experience these if we are the only user, and close to the mast. But the cell must share usage amongst everyone, and is often limited by the most distance users at the cell edge, not the ones who are closest. Average throughput in a well-shared cell is much lower than the oft-quoted peaks (much like shared wifi). Perhaps only 20% of the peak, according to one Motorola white paper.
The efficiency of spectrum usage is set when the specifications are written. You see step changes in cost per Mbps (or per GB) when a new technology turns up, with a new allocation of spectrum, but otherwise there is little scope to reduce the cost.
Why?
An operator can initially make the cells large using higher power, to cover more ground, but also to cover more people. As he gets more subscribers, the speed each receives falls. Upgrades are needed...
He can choose to install more cells (with more backhaul to each one), use lower power for each, less ground coverage to each, and fewer subscribers to each. Each user's experience gets better again - but it cost a lot more to install all those extra cells, and all that extra backhaul.
As demand increases (more subscribers, higher usage), the only thing that a mobile operator can do is to keep adding more capacity - installing more masts, with more backhaul. Or to buy more spectrum, and start installing more transceiver hardware at the masts.
If a mobile operator dropped his prices (or usage caps), then he'd get too much business, and everyone's speeds would drop. More masts would be needed, but there'd be no money to pay for them. And we can only cope with a certain density of masts before interference starts becoming a problem.
4G can act as viable broadband for those with
no choice, but the prices need to be set such that those
with a choice never choose it. The price has to be high enough to scare such users away.