BLOG

Bandwidth might be a key issue for human users of mobile and fixed networks. For most machine-to-machine applications, bandwidth is far less an issue than sensor battery life, as the amount of information often transmitted is almost trivial. Where human smartphone requirements often are characterized by the need for scores of megabytes per second data […]

The 5G era is going to be different from all others in the history of telecom, for several reasons. Traditionally, scarcity has been the paramount business constraint. Bandwidth was scarce and therefore expensive. Regulatory strategies were designed to keep matters that way, using monopoly or oligopoly market structures; expensive licensed spectrum; franchise or other market […]

“Take the package” (early retirement) quipped Tony Mosley, Ocean Specialists director of business development, after a review of major trends in the global telecom business at the latest PTC Academy program in Bangkok, Thailand. Mosley’s playful retort came just before, as part of the exercise, students then developed a list of key challenges they would […]

One recurring and important strategic issue was raised at both the Spectrum Futures event and the following PTC Academy training course held in Bangkok, Thailand the week of Sept. 18, 2017: Can service providers move up the stack, and should they? Russell Lundberg, Bangkok Beach Telecom CEO and founder, argued that “I’m a plumber; I […]

No revenue source in the telecom industry has ever powered revenues forever. For more than a hundred years, fixed network voice was the only service, and revenues seemingly grew every year, as more people and businesses connected. That fixed network growth trend ended in some countries by 2000, globally by 2003 to 2006 or so, […]

Though there will be many important 5G technology innovations, including widespread use of millimeter wave technologies for consumer access purposes; spectrum sharing and small cell architectures, the biggest single risk is the business model. More than half of mobile industry executives surveyed by GSMA say the business model, specifically the “lack of a clear business […]

Wholesale is likely to emerge as a key revenue stream for 5G services, especially using the virtualized capabilities of core and edge radio networks to enable end-to-end private networks by third party customers. The whole point of operating virtualized networks (network functions virtualization) is to support rapid and easy creation of network services and features, […]

It is not hard to predict that 5G revenue will be substantial by 2025. By then, 5G might represent 12 percent of total mobile subscriptions globally, and that alone would represent a substantial revenue figure. ABI Research predicts that mobile service providers will generate $247 billion in 5G revenues in 2025. That should not come […]

Even if 5G will represent a business model revolution (growth fundamentally based on new applications for non-human users), its technological path is evolutionary, and based largely on innovations for advanced 4G. One way of illustrating the “evolutionary” nature of the transition from 4G to 6G is to note the language now used to describe “pre-5G” […]