Mobile infrastructure competition – it is far more than a numbers game!
The recent regulatory spot-light has been on the right number of competing mobile network operators in the market on both sides of the Atlantic – where EU and US regulators seem to have arrived at different numbers. What is the right number of competing mobile operators? And is it just a question of getting the right number of competitors and the market will do the rest? EU REgulators are leaving a lot of unanswered questions
Read more →Falling site rents are critical to a 5G mobile revolution
Everyone has to view the rolling out of dense small-cell 5G networks as an operation to be organised on an industrial scale with all the component costs scaled to a mass production of broadband data capacity across cities and towns. The new small cell network economics should only have one thing in common with today’s mobile networks – ”affordable access fees”. This drives an imperative to hold down running costs as the number of cells multiply.
Read more →Spectrum Trading offers a route to better performing mobile networks
If we are all to enjoy really high performing mobile networks in the future various forms of spectrum sharing between mobile operators will become essential. Spectrum trading offers the most profitable route to spectrum sharing. But in spite of the enabling legislation being over 10 years old and Ofcom passing the necessary supporting regulations over […]
Read more →Ofcom’s proposals for 700 MHz leave scope for much more gain and much less pain
Ofcom are consulting on their proposal for re-allocating the 700 MHz band exclusively for mobile services. They claim it could save the mobile operators £480m-£770m’s worth of new base stations. A much better outcome could be achieved by using the 700 MHz band auction to incentivise the mobile industry towards more base stations not less. […]
Read more →Net Neutrality – the US Internet is taking a wrong turning
The Net Neutrality debate has always been as passionate as it has been polarised. Yet there remains a problem to be solved. One set of enterprises, like Netflix and U-Tube, are driving up video traffic across the Internet and another set of enterprises, the ISP’s, are being expected to pick up the extra investment cost to carry their traffic.
Read more →Does a mobile network – cable TV network marriage make sense?
Vodafone has being buying cable TV assets in several European countries and in France the cable TV group Altice has bought the French mobile operator SFR. Delivering TV programmes to a TV set appears to have nothing in common with delivering a telephone call to a mobile. So what is the commercial or strategic logic of a mobile network operator getting together with a cable TV network operator?
Read more →What’s the market for 5G?…follow the money
People may have forgotten the film “All the President’s Men” starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redgrave but everyone knows the expression coined in that film…that if you want to find the answer “follow the money”. The answer we want to know today, as we set our research objectives for 5G, is what the market drivers are going to be for 5G. We need to finish with a globally harmonised technology that mobile network operators (who comprise “the market” for 5G networks) will want to buy.
Read more →LTE has too many frequency bands – endangering global connectivity
LTE is a triumph of standardisation at the silicon chip level. Never has the world been so converged on a common mobile technology future. But LTE has been much less successful at the Radio Frequency level. LTE has been specified in too many frequency bands. There are in 30 different frequency bands for the FDD version of LTE and 14 for the TDD version. Just what problems are we storing up in the future by this alarming proliferation of 4G frequency bands?
Read more →Future of free-to-air public service TV broadcasting in a wireless broadband Internet age
The battle lines are drawn between the broadcasting and mobile radio industries over the future of the precious UHF spectrum. The mobile industry case appears to be winning. But there are clear dangers in overlooking important issues that may well come back and cause an upset later. One of those issues is the long term future of free-to-air public service TV broadcasting in a wireless broadband Internet age.
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