While billed revenue from wireless carriers worldwide is expected to cross $1 trillion by 2016, losses loom if anticipatory action is not taken soon.

A new report from Juniper Research claims that carriers face a nightmare scenario in four years when costs will swamp profits as core revenue is flat-lining and even declining in some markets. Remedial measures tailored to a carrier?s market position and underlying strategy is key if they are to avoid an inexorable rise in costs.

?The beginnings of this scenario are being played out on a global scale ? margins are falling year on year,? said Windsor Holden, principal analyst at Juniper, Hampshire, England.

?So, in many cases, putting these adaptive strategies into place is essential,? he said. ?They are survival measures. But moving on from that, the evolved mobile ecosystem does present mobile network operators with the opportunity to do much more than that: to deliver revenue streams while reducing cost levels.?

Better bytes
Mr. Holden?s findings are outlined in Juniper's ?The Mobile Operator Business Models? report released this week.

Market saturation along with falling average revenue per user is said to be the key cause for stagnant and even declining revenues.

Carriers also have to grapple with out-of-control backhaul costs due to the dramatic growth in wireless network data traffic which more than doubled last year.

The report claims that wireless network data traffic will increase 13 times to 25,000 petabytes per year by 2015.

Mr. Holden is clear that a one-size-fits-all approach will not work. Circumstances vary by carrier and also within the same market where competitors jostle for share.

The researcher offers a few suggestions.

For example, second-tier carriers with lower traffic volumes can stay competitive by retaining flat-rate data bundles.

Also, integrated mobile broadcasts are a cost-effective means to offload video traffic from the carrier?s network.

Finally, a switch to environmentally friendly networks and base stations will help both the public perception and good as well as benefit the bottom line.

?Essentially, mobile network operators should seek to leverage their existing assets ? their networks, their customer relationships ? to deliver new revenue streams,? Mr. Holden said.

?There are various opportunities here, perhaps most notably cloud computing, where MNOs can offer both IaaS and PaaS,? he said. ?Likewise, there is significant potential across a host of verticals in M2M.?

In for info
What about carrier participation in mobile commerce and mobile advertising and marketing?

?A qualified ?yes? here ? but only in partnership with third-parties,? Mr. Holden said.

?Mobile network operators are not retailers, but they do possess substantial information about the mobile customer,? he said.

?This information is extremely valuable to brands and retailers. So it?s then a case of monetizing that information without infringing either privacy regulations or customer trust. ?