Rewheel/research

Capacity utilization and fixed-to-mobile broadband substitution potential with existing macro site grids – 2017

September 2018

A study of 80 European, US, Japanese, Korean, Australian and New Zealand mobile operators

Topical for operators contemplating fixed-to-mobile broadband substitution ahead of upcoming 700, 1400 (SDL), 2300, 3400-3800 MHz spectrum auctions

Capacity utilization in 2017 and capacity potential of existing macro cell site grids

Elisa in Finland is the operator (and Finland is the country) with the highest mobile data capacity potential in the world
Verizon was the operator with the highest yearly average capacity utilization of 57% in 2017. Most mobile operators utilized in 2017, similarly to 2016, a fraction (below 20%) of their readily available network capacity
The United States was the country with the highest capacity utilization of 33% in 2017 even though the US mobile networks carried in average only 4 GB per person per month (US ranked fourteenth in mobile data usage per capita).
In Europe Play Poland was the operator with the highest mobile data capacity utilization of 55% in 2017 (48% in 2016)
Operators in the Nordics, Austria and Korea have 5 to 10 times denser macro site grids than operators in the United States or Canada and hence much higher capacity potential (i.e. 3.6 GHz massive MIMO deployed on macro sites)

Fixed-to-mobile broadband substitution potential with existing macro cell site grids

Elisa in Finland was the operator with the highest mobile data and spectrum usage per capita in the world and as well the operator with the highest fixed-to-mobile broadband substitution potential
Finland is the country with the highest fixed-to-mobile broadband substitution potential of 185% followed by Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Korea and Austria. The United States ranks second from the bottom in this metric with 37%
Mobile operators that will gain access to sizable TDD spectrum holdings in the 3400-3800 MHz bands and deploy it with massive MIMO can unleash the full potential of fixed-to-mobile broadband substitution i.e. 200 GB per person per month or ˜500 GB per household
In Finland where 36% of all households were mobile broadband only households (no fixed broadband connection) the average mobile data consumption per capita reached 30 gigabytes per month in 1H2018 (˜60 gigabytes per household)

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