Over the past 50 years, industries have grown and firms have consolidated around large, fixed facilities where functions and business processes could be co?located. That model of centralized industrial efficiency is now being rendered obsolete by the transformative power of ubiquitous broadband wireless communications.

In the past, verbal and visual communication in the workplace assumed physical co?location; as workers became accustomed to the performance of local area networks (LANs) for both voice and data communications, telecommunications systems such as the private branch exchanges (PBXs) and personal computers (PCs) strengthened the ties to fixed facilities. Over the next five years, however, most industries will move away from a fixed and location-centric work environment to a dispersed mobile world where workers are deployed in the location where they are most effective.

In only a short time, the idea of a pervasive mobile workforce went from being years away to being close at hand. As shown by the following facts, many of the big-ticket technological and regulatory limitations that a few years ago may have made widespread mobility unrealistic are now gone:

- Broadband data speeds have reached 90 percent of business establishments.

- Wireless broadband is available in all major metropolitan areas.

- Mobile voice services have saturated all industries.

- Mobile and wireline prices have dropped rapidly with the elimination of usage charges and the adoption of subscription-based services such as voice over the Internet protocol (VoIP).

Deploying a mobile workforce requires that a number of elements come together to make these workers effective in the field:

- mobile services — wireless, broadband;

- devices — cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), notebooks, wireless cards;

- service control — management of wireline, wireless, office/remote access in a seamless service offering;

- enterprise applications — the business processes that are automated through mobile access; and

- business application platforms — the foundations and interfaces for building enterprise applications over a converged wireless and wireline network.

In this study, INSIGHT analyzed each of these five elements as prerequisites for extending mobility to enterprise applications. To deliver mobile applications to users requires a complex interaction of customized software, server and data center middleware, and networks. Our study focuses on the value of the applications that traverse the networks; we do not attempt to quantify the value of the software applications, per se. Our objective is to provide an analysis of the various types of applications that traverse carrier networks and the value of those applications to the carrier in such a way that carriers can focus their marketing initiatives towards the fastest growing vertical and horizontal applications.

1.2 Evolution of a Mobile Workforce

To fully appreciate the emergence of the mobile workforce, it is important to understand how the US workforce is changing and how mobile technology can affect these changes. Fifteen years ago, the analysis of a mobile workforce would be limited by employer reluctance to support remote workers, while the technology to support mobile workers outside of the office was also limited.

Over the past 15 years, these limitations have been eliminated. Employers are now actively promoting the expansion of their mobile workforce and technology is enabling continuous communication with employees outside of the office. Of note are a number of statistics sited in a study by the Telework Coalition:

- 89 of the top 100 US companies offer telecommuting;
- 58 percent of companies consider themselves a virtual workplace;
- only nine percent of employees worked at headquarters; and
- 67 percent of all workers used mobile and wireless computing.

At a more fundamental level, the US is in the midst of a transition from a manufacturing economy to a services economy, which has caused a redistribution of employment. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projections for 2012 show a growth of 15 million new jobs over 2005, with virtually all of the growth occurring in the services sector. Growth from .....

Market Segmentation

Wireline
Growth of Wireline Access Lines and Wireless Subscribers
US Broadband Subscribers, 2007-2012
FTTx Penetration, 2006-2010
US Home Networks, 2005-2010
US Wireline Loops, Wireless Subscribers, and VoIP Subscribers
Wireless
US Wireless Monthly ARPU and Minutes of Use, 1990-2005
US Wireless Subscribers, 1985-2012
US Wireless Voice vs. Data Monthly ARPU, 2005-2012
US Wireless Subscribers and Broadband Subscribers, 2000-2012
US Wireless 2G and 3G Subscribers, 2006-2012
US Wireless GSM Subscribers by Air Interface, 2006-2012
US Wireless CDMA Subscriber by Air Interface, 2006-2012

Revenue
Business Wireline Broadband and Cellular Pricing Trends
Total US Mobile Enterprise Application Service Revenues
Mobile Enterprise Application Service Revenues vs. Employment
US Mobile Enterprise Wireline Application Service Revenues by Type
Broadband
Metro/Local
WAN
US Mobile Wireless Application Service Revenues
Cellular
WLAN
US Cellular Telecom Service Revenues by Occupation
Management
Professional
Service
Sales
Administrative
Constr, Agri
Production
Transportation