Demand for faster upload speeds growing: analysts

The need for upload speed is growing among Canadian consumers and businesses, though it’s too early to tell whether there’s real demand for symmetrical Internet plans that some companies have begun offering, according to analysts. During the annual BMO Capital Markets’ media and telecom investor’s conference, Telus Corp. said that it has separated itself from the pack by offering symmetrical Internet, or plans where upload speeds are identical to download speeds. “Upload speed is actually critically becoming more and more important whether you want to upload lots and lots of pictures or videos, security cameras, all of those sorts of things require fairly significant upload speeds,” David Fuller, Telus’ executive vice president and president of consumer and small business solutions, said in a presentation Tuesday. He said symmetrical Internet “is a differentiator for us” in a market where “your typical competitive offering … might’ve been 150 down, but only 15 or 10 meg up.” “It’s even more applicable as you look at B2B offerings in places like healthcare and oil and gas,” Fuller added. Telus’ symmetrical Internet offers include 250 Mbps download and 250 Mbps upload speeds with 1 terabyte of data, according to its website. Some smaller Internet service providers (ISP) also offer symmetrical connections, such as Beanfield Technologies Inc. in Toronto. “There are increasingly a large number of apps that would require more upload speeds,” Desmond Lau, an analyst at Veritas Investment Research Corp., said in a phone interview. He cited examples like social media services from Facebook Inc. and Snapchat Inc., as well as Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube, to which users upload video. Lau added that given the large file size of high-definition video, consumers benefit from faster upload speeds. “Whatever upload is now, I’m willing to bet that it does become a growing proportion over time,” Troy Crandall, an analyst at 3Macs, said in a phone interview. “But whether or not it ever necessarily needs 50/50, that’s another thing.” Crandall added that applications like online gaming, especially as they become more sophisticated, will require a good upstream connection. So do video conferencing and video chatting, as well as services like remote home monitoring and the Internet of Things devices. Still, Crandall said symmetrical offerings are “probably more of a differentiator than anything else.” Asymmetrical Internet packages, where download speeds are prioritized and can be many times that of upload speeds, rule the roost. And there’s a reason for that — in 2014, the average monthly amount downloaded by residential subscribers was 66.5 GB versus monthly uploads of 8.6 GB, according to the CRTC’s latest Communications Monitoring Report. “Downloads represent approximately 90 per cent of the bandwidth and uploads about 10 per cent,” Lau said. “So download speed is still the most important between the two.” Iain Grant, a Seaboard Group Inc. analyst, said in an email that Telus “can offer it, so they are, and they can trumpet the difference when their prime competitor, Shaw , cannot make such a boast.” “Does it matter to most consumers or businesses? No.” RBC Capital Markets’ Drew McReynolds said in an email that he also expects demand for faster upload speeds to increase, but “whether upload ever catches up with download entirely, that will be entirely application-dependent.” “I’m sure there are certain B2B applications today that demand that strong upload. As for the consumer market, it likely takes new applications to emerge before that symmetry becomes critical,” he said, noting gaming or virtual reality applications could be what drives any such trend. An email from BMO advertised the conference as being meant to “spark discussion around consumers’ insatiable demand for broadband and the pressure it puts on companies to adapt to consumer needs on both wireline and wireless platforms.” — With reporting by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

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Demand for faster upload speeds growing: analysts

Broadcast | September 14, 2016

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