1&1 Drillisch’s MVNO business in Germany would become unprofitable when 5G goes mainstream, so investing in spectrum was 1&1 Drillisch’s only choice to keep its business afloat. 1&1 Drillisch’s 4th MNO business case will be positive if BNetzA intervenes and mandates competitive national data roaming rates.

The state of 4G pricing, mobile data usage, spectrum usage, network capacity utilization and fixed-to-mobile broadband substitution. After its comeback in 2016, in 2017 unlimited mobile data goes viral and spreads to 22 countries. And while in competitive markets such as France and Denmark consumers can buy 100 or unlimited gigabytes for less than €30, in tight mobile oligopoly markets such as Portugal, Greece and Hungary €30 hardly buys any gigabytes.

UPDATED with DG Competition's response to Rewheel's concerns. How low should the wholesale data roaming cap be in 2017 to avoid the distortion of competition in North-Eastern domestic mobile markets where retail gigabyte prices are competitive?

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The Commission proposed wholesale data roaming cap of €8.5/GB appears to be carefully calibrated to protect the very high domestic retail prices charged by operators in tight oligopoly markets (e.g. Germany, Spain) while penalizing operators with competitive much lower domestic retail prices (e.g. Finland, Denmark, Poland)

Analysis of smartphone mobile internet access roaming prices in EU28 in Q4 2014

This report has been commissioned by Viestintävirasto, the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority.