At tefficient, we’ve built a comprehensive before/after analysis framework of the results operators have achieved when transforming their offers from single-service to quad-play.

There are many indications that quad-play is about to become the new European standard: Telekom will go quad-play in Germany during 2014; Vodafone has acquired Kabel Deutschland and Ono to go beyond mobile-only; TeliaSonera reorganised 1 April to converge fixed and mobile on a national basis.

Quad is propagating over Europe with south-westerly winds. The map above shows the wind direction: From Portugal, Spain and France towards Central and North Europe.

The first step towards true quad is often what we call light quad – a discount that a customer gets if he or she adds mobile to triple-play. In this case, it’s typically not very prominent in operator’s marketing, there’s typically no product brand name, and far from the straight-forward pitch of true quad operators.

The current position of European operators – who have quad capability – is seen in our quad pyramid above. The arrows indicate operators that are seen to take action to move upwards.

Through our before/after analysis, we’ve spotted several very interesting outcomes – best as well as worst practices. These can be used to either prepare your own journey into quad – or understand how to best defend against quad-capable competitors.