Executive summary
1. Despite the growth and increasing pervasiveness of mobile networks over the last decade, there is still a section of the population with minimal or no coverage. While there are real geographic and economic reasons for this, it raises questions in the wider debate on the ways and means of providing ‘universal’ access to mobile and the internet.
Mobile networks are pervasive. 2G coverage now reaches more than 90% of the population in most mature markets and in many emerging ones, and while 3G coverage is generally lower (60-70%) we expect this to rise to similar levels off the back of continued investment by the mobile operators of around $250 billion per year to 2020. However, there remains a section of the population — perhaps 10–15% — that still has little or no coverage. These individuals are largely distributed in emerging markets and based in rural regions, in many ways representing the final frontier of connectivity. This is a result of an unfavourable cost- benefit equation faced by the mobile operators in which geographic impediments, vast distances and the lack of electricity grid access collectively create a significantly increased cost base for the rollout and maintenance of networks which is not compensated for by incremental revenue from a predominantly low income customer base.
We expect an additional 1.1 billion people across emerging markets to subscribe to mobile services for the first time over the 7 year period to 2020. While the majority of these are in rural regions, there is also an opportunity to connect non-adopters in cities who are covered by mobile networks but lack the income to use them. The increasing desire of governments to mandate ‘universal’ access to mobile and the internet therefore raises the question of how to extend network coverage to the population tail and help to improve affordability. And, who should bear the financial and operational responsibility given the positive socio-economic impact of bringing mobile connectivity to the previously unserved or unconnected? These are fundamental challenges in realising a digital future whose benefits are felt up and down the income ladder, and it is clear that collaboration between government and private sector players is necessary to achieve this.
2. The final frontier has also become the most publicly visible platform for a raft of experiments with alternative connectivity technologies backed and promoted by big internet players, with aerial networks and the use of white space in the TV spectrum most prominent. So far, these alternative technologies appear to be targeting potential use cases to expand connectivity beyond existing mobile infrastructure to help drive socio-economic impact in emerging markets — such as expanding internet access to remote rural regions and disaster response zones.
However, their viability and disruptive potential on a wider commercial scale in the short to medium term is harder to see. Short of heavily subsidising the cost of internet service and end-user devices (such as handsets or laptops), the significant outlay and increased ongoing cost base of a full-scale network present the risk that access through such means could become more, rather than less, expensive as a share of income than it already is. This matters because affordability is often a larger hurdle to adoption than coverage – a reality seen in many emerging markets where 2G mobile coverage (itself capable of handling low speed internet access) is well above ownership, particularly for low-income rural regions. In addition, there are several operational and technical challenges, and regulatory uncertainty.
Expanding networks to the sky through balloons, drones and satellites has the advantage of providing a wider range of ground coverage, which can help in serving remote rural communities, supplementing efforts to aide disaster responses, and in some cases facilitating backhaul capacity. The use of TV white space (TVWS) has a limited rural use case, with some (albeit very limited) application in urban centres at lower capacity. However, the increasing public visibility of these technologies and promotion from their formidable backers — principally Google, Facebook and Microsoft – prompts the question of whether these could cause disruption at the wider connectivity layer of the mobile sector value chain.
On their merits, we believe this is unlikely, at least in the medium term. Rolling out a scaled network entails an outlay and cost base that is much higher than the current pilots in localised areas and, while the business models to monetise this are not yet clear, it is hard to see how these solutions would not make the cost of accessing the internet more, rather than less, expensive as a share of income than it already is. Second, the technological characteristics make their scaled use in cities very difficult. Finally, they appear to rely on the use of unlicensed models for connectivity and lack of regulatory frameworks, raising questions around quality of service and the risks of planning and investing both for their principal backers and for the ecosystem that would need to form around them to catalyse scale beyond experimentation.
3. We see the more likely intent as part of a wider campaign by the large internet players to gain greater public policy influence. Alternative connectivity strategies are indicative of the increasing pace of innovation in the wider mobile ecosystem. If the first phase of this centred on over-the-top (OTT) players at the service layer (challenging SMS in particular), it now appears to be expanding to target the access level. This time, however, operators are in a stronger position given existing network scale, continued investment and demonstrable innovation of their own.
It is, of course, a difficult and often fruitless task attempting to predict the next move of a serial innovator, and from this the question of whether Google or Facebook harbours ambitions to become a full-scale connectivity provider will likely continue to circle regardless of viability. Indeed, for Google it is not the first foray into telecoms access, with it having laid high-speed fixed fibre broadband networks in three US cities and plans for nine others, as well as a local fibre build in Uganda’s capital. However, we believe the real intent here is more pragmatic, with alternative access trials being used as a tool of influence with policy makers and the mobile operators, and potentially to strike licensing partnerships (as Google’s recent public indications suggest). While innovative business models can play a role, the fundamental economics of network deployments to more marginalised populations that are primarily shouldered by the operators cannot be ignored.
It is in this space where a lot of innovation is coming from the mobile operators at the network level in an effort to expand coverage and lower the cost of access. Network share agreements at the passive level (sites, towers and power) have grown over the last several years, with early adopting markets such as India and Pakistan now being joined by wider-scale engagements – the recent infrastructure agreement between eight operators accounting for 551 million mobile connections (or 46% share) across Africa and the Middle East being a prominent example targeting mobile broadband access to unserved rural communities. This sharing has also started to deepen into the Radio Access Network, underpinning savings from build out capex and maintenance opex that can be re-harvested into investment. Finally, where operators have reached remote rural communities, their presence has increasingly attracted energy firms (Energy Service Companies, or ESCos) through a symbiotic micro economy. Operator demand for powering base station sites incentivise ESCos to build distributed small scale power plants serving the telecom tower and local communities either through a minigrid or energy hub model, which in turn allows consumers to charge mobile phones (among other things). All of these are win-wins for consumers and a positive influence on the take-up of mobile given that coverage expands and investment rises (it is investment, not the number of competitors, most closely linked with lower unit prices for voice and data).
This document was originally produced as part of the former Mobile for Development Impact programme.