Future of Spectrum Management - Presentation by Dean Bubley, Brussels June 2015

The Future of Spectrum Management

Avoiding a service monoculture

Dean Bubley, Disruptive Analysis

June 2015

[email protected] @disruptivedean

mailto:[email protected]

About Disruptive Analysis

Tech/telecom analyst house & strategic consulting firm

Cross-silo, contrarian, independent

Forecasting & anti-forecasting

Consultant & advisor to telcos, vendors, regulators & investors

Speaker at 30+ events per year in Europe, US & Asia

Reports on Mobile Broadband, WebRTC etc

Not a day-to-day spectrum specialist

Twitter @disruptivedean Blog: disruptivewireless.blogspot.com

Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd 2015June 2015

Regulation is good at dealing with….

Standalone services

Well-defined products

Stable standards

National / regional

Service providers

Homogeneous

Similar models

Few in number

Commercial / Govt


Regulation is bad at dealing with….

Generalised capabilities

Fluid products/features

No/changing standards

Non-geographic

Capability providers

Diverse stakeholders

Non-service models

Many players

New motivations


FREE!

Cloud-

based

Mashups

P2P & Crowd-

sourced

X-as-a-

Feature

Distributed

Different domains, similar challenges


Regulated, predictable,

important, inflexible

tax/fee-generating

Services

Un/light-regulated,

unpredictable,

innovative, disruptive

Capabilities

Telecom Services

Telcos: Voice

telephony & SMS

Internet Capabilities

“OTTs”, apps, social.

Dev & web community

Spectrum for Services

Mobile Broadband

Broadcast & Satellite

Spectrum for Capabilities

WiFi, short-range, PMSE,

IoT, private cellular, govt

Diversity vs. Monoculture


Efficient & Productive Diversity & Future Optionality

IMT intended for “services”, with all that implies


Not everything wireless is a subscription model


AmenitySubscription

service

Owned

outright

Peer-to-peer

Sponsored Transactional Also: Wireless-as-

a-feature

SPs are not the only wireless stakeholders


User

Mobile operator

Venues Fixed/cable

Things

OS / OEMEnterprises

Broadcasters

Internet

Automotive City Brand Developers

Unexpected routes to digitalisation of society


Mobile broadband forecasts over-cooked?

Much growth driven by new (high-end) users & devices

IoT forecasts attempt to create self-fulfilling prophecies

Assume “service” & IMT-type “operator” model is optimal & ubiquitous


0%

50%

100%

150%

200%

250%

'11 '12 '13 '14 '15 '16 '17 '18 '19 '20

Subscriber numbers

Data per subscriber

Smartphone 3G/4G data traffic growth

Source: Ericsson, Disruptive Analysis

Dominated by

subs growth

Unrealistic view of

usage growth in

prepay-dominated

market?

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

4500

'12 '13 '14 '15 '16 '17 '18 '19

Postpaid

Prepaid

Mobile data subs, year-end, m

Source: Disruptive Analysis Mobile Broadband report

Mostly fixed

monthly quotas

Incentivised to

use less data?

The vision for 5G…


Ultra-fast mobile

broadband

Critical & low

latency

Super-dense

IoT

• All-embracing

• Many use-cases

• Strong arguments for

more spectrum, but…

• Unintended

consequences?

• Pre-defines model &

stakeholders?

• Extends oligopolies to

adjacent mkts?

• WiFi offload / LTE-U /

LAA as example?

Conclusion: The next 10 years

Mobile Broadband “service” model a huge success…

… but not the only way forward

Innovation comes from diversity, not monoculture

Spectrum regulation decoupled from downstream innovators

2nd-order stakeholder groups proliferating for wireless

Risk of unfair competition between models not just companies

Beware of assumptions & unintended consequences

Spectrum Mgmt 2025 must be more than just “services”


Dean Bubley

www.disruptive-analysis.com

disruptivewireless.blogspot.com

@disruptivedean

[email protected]

Skype:disruptiveanalysis


http://www.disruptive-analysis.com/

mailto:[email protected]

Future of Spectrum Management - Presentation by Dean Bubley, Brussels June 2015

Technology