Rewheel/research

December 2019

In December 2019 Sunrise invited Rewheel to try its 5G based home broadband solution in Switzerland. Rewheel had previously provided consulting support for Sunrise in preparation for the 5G spectrum auction that was held in early 2019. After the modelling work and conceptual sessions, we were eager to go back to Switzerland to see how Sunrise’s engineers managed to turn theory into practice.

2018 capacity utilization and 5G capacity potential of mobile operator existing macro cell site grids

2018

October 2019

When will EU28 & OECD operators run out of 4G capacity and how many more gigabytes per subscriber per month can they carry with 5G? A Rewheel research PRO-study of 143 European, US, Canadian, Japanese, Korean and Australian operators

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.

First impressions from the world’s first commercial 5G network

August 2018

In June 2018 Elisa became the first operator in the world to launch commercial service over its 5G (3.5 GHz) network in Tampere Finland and Tallinn Estonia. Elisa invited Rewheel to try its 5G network.

The massive MIMO effect: has the 3.4-3.8 GHz TDD spectrum become more valuable than 800 MHz (and 700 MHz) FDD?

April 2018

Paradigm change in mobile technology leads to paradigm change in spectrum valuations (observations after the UK auction)

Unlimited mobile data and near zero marginal cost – a paradigm shift in telco business models

September 2017

European winners and losers in 4.5G and 5G – study of 30 operators. Will mobile network CAPEX stay flat in the long run? Spectrum valuation implications.

Volume-based mobile data monetisation is unsustainable

[External post, Linkedin]
September 2017

5G capacity abundance, flat Capex = paradigm shit. Comments from Finnish Elisa's consumer business VP under the article "what makes these [volume-based] pricing ideas profoundly unsustainable".

O2 – Ready to disrupt the German tight oligopoly market

April 2017

In March 2017 Telefonica O2 Germany announced 3.5 GHz (they have 83 MHz) Massive MIMO (= very high capacity LTE macro sectors) field trials with Huawei for wireless home broadband and 4K video. Our models predict that O2's macro site grid and spectrum resources (FDD+TDD) could allow it to drive fixed-to-mobile broadband substitution in Germany by connecting millions of households with HD TV service on its high capacity LTE network.

Capacity utilization and fixed-to-mobile broadband substitution potential – A study of 64 European operators

March 2017

When LTE base stations are upgraded to 'Gigabit' speed the gigabyte volume capacity of the networks also greatly expands. We modelled LTE network capacity based on existing FDD and TDD spectrum holdings (and potential acquisitions in 2.3 and 3.4-3.8 GHz bands) and sizes of the macro site grids. Without and with Massive MIMO in the TDD bands. Topical for operators contemplating fixed-to-mobile broadband substitution ahead of upcoming 700, 1500 (SDL), 2300, 3400-3600 MHz spectrum auctions.