European Tally of Commercial Demand Drivers Aims to Improve EC Decision-Making
BRUSSELS -- More sophisticated devices, more use of mobile applications and increased network speeds are expected to be the main drivers for commercial services over the next 10 years, executives working on a European Commission (EC) study said. Executives differed over the impact of machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. Wi-Fi for network offloading and small cells may be integrated in the future, an Ericsson executive said. The study focuses on the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the U.K. with an extrapolation of results to the 27 countries in the EU.
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The demand-side study examined technology trends and future needs for commercial services to aid in decisionmaking, an EC official said. The commission will analyze the expected demand in a separate study on the supply of spectrum and consultations with EU governments on how efficiently spectrum is used, he said. The EC will submit the analysis to the European Parliament early next year. Analysys Mason is conducting the study, which is focused on bands between 400 MHz and 6 GHz to the year 2022, on behalf of the EC. The draft study will be completed in July.
The relatively low levels of spectrum awarded by some EU governments for mobile broadband is “very worrying,” said Andreas Geiss, EC deputy head of unit for radio spectrum policy. EU governments have only awarded about 65 percent of the 1,000 MHz of spectrum that has been harmonized in Europe for mobile broadband, he said. Some countries have done a lot more, he said, while others have done a lot less. The EC has talked with ministers about the need to speed up action processes at national levels, he said.
Takeup of more sophisticated devices will be a strong private sector demand driver for mobile services in the medium to long term, said Paulina Pastor, senior manager at Analysys Mason. She referred to a Cisco forecast that 460 million smartphones and 70 million tablets will be in use in Europe by 2016. She also referred to an Ericsson forecast that data usage per device will be 1900 MB monthly by 2018, and a Cisco forecast that device usage will grow to 2,567 MB per month by 2016. The draft study showed a forecast of about 460 MB per device per month in Western Europe in 2017. The forecast for Eastern European was about 400 MB per device per month.
Takeup of mobile applications and increased mobile data speeds are the two strongest private-sector demand drivers for mobile services in the short to long term, Pastor said. Cheaper terminals will boost consumer use of mobile services, a Huawei executive said. Rollout of Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced will also drive spectrum demand into the long term, the draft study said. Higher speeds mean more data consumption, Pastor said. The spectral efficiency will help meet demand for spectrum, she said.
M2M connections will have “almost no impact on the spectrum demand,” Pastor said. Forecasts for the number of M2M connections are for significant growth over several years, Pastor said. However, the proportion of mobile traffic is “really tiny,” she said. M2M communications may “dominate” data traffic in the future, an Ericsson executive said.
Offloading mobile traffic to Wi-Fi networks will reduce the demand for spectrum, Pastor said. Wi-Fi offloading is expected to overtake cellular traffic by 2014, the draft study said. A Cisco study showed that the Wi-Fi offloading would result in a 66 percent yearly increase in mobile traffic instead of 78 percent offloading, a Qualcomm executive said. The numerical effect of Wi-Fi offloading of data traffic as a consumer substitute for using cellular networks appears to be just emerging, Lluís Borrell, a partner with Analysys Mason, told us.
Femtocells aren’t likely to have much or any impact on demand for spectrum, she said. Not much forecast data was available, she said. Wi-Fi and small cells may be integrated in the future, the Ericsson executive said.
Spectrum sharing and white spaces will boost efficiency of spectrum use, Pastor said. It may lower the demand for exclusive spectrum from mobile services, she said. Spectrum sharing and white spaces are policy tools to boost supply, the Huawei executive said. It won’t impact demand, he said.
Spectrum used by WiMAX systems may become available in the future in some countries, the draft study said. WiMAX subscribership in Europe peaked in 2011 at just over one million, it said.
No new mobile network operators will likely be launched in Europe in the next 10 years, Pastor said. Networks will consolidate leading to more efficient spectrum use, she said.
Metrics for digital terrestrial TV (DTT) in Europe are also rising, the draft study said. TV viewing times in the eight countries under study rose from between 3 and 11 percent, it said. The projected growth of 174 percent in non-linear TV consumption between 2012 and 2020 will still account for a “small share of total TV viewing per person,” it said. The number of national DTT channels in the 27 EU member countries has “grown significantly” in the last five years, it said. TV penetration remains high in Europe, it said. HDTV is growing rapidly, it said. Adoption of 3DTV is likely to rise, it said. Spectrum assigned for DVB-H may be reassigned, it said.
Additional information can be included in the draft report. Limited forecasts and other pertinent data were available on fixed links, in part because systems are moving to higher frequencies and the study only looked at spectrum from 400 MHz to 6 GHz. More information was sought on spectrum demand drivers for intelligent transport, wireless devices for broadcast and other productions, satellite and short range devices.