Governments have 12 months to secure the future of the mobile internet. In November 2015, a global UN treaty conference – the World Radiocommunication Conference – will decide whether to allocate more of an invisible national asset, so it can be used by the mobile internet.
Without more radio spectrum, mobile networks will not have the capacity to meet the escalating data usage demands of consumers and businesses, while countries will miss out on significant economic benefits.
The mobile industry contributed about 3.6 per cent of global GDP in 2013, equivalent to more than $2.4tn. This is expected to increase to 5.1 per cent by 2020. In addition, 10.5m jobs are directly supported by the mobile industry across the world.
Put simply, mobile networks, which deliver billions of voice calls, messages and megabytes of data every day, need sufficient spectrum to work.
Mobile services have fast evolved beyond telephone calls and voice messages to take centre stage in an increasingly connected world. With global mobile connections set to reach more than 8bn by the end of next year, mobile is becoming the most popular way to access the internet.
In many emerging markets, mobile broadband is often the only way for most people to use online services. Across the global economy, mobile is a critical route to market for large and small businesses alike, as well as for developers and start-ups.
Why is spectrum so important? As data traffic surges because of accelerating mobile usage and increasing innovation in the mobile industry, networks are facing a capacity crunch – a spectrum shortfall that puts the sustainability of mobile communication at risk.
Meanwhile, mobile data usage continues to grow at an exponential rate. Cisco, a US telecommunications group, predicts that global mobile data traffic will increase nearly 11-fold between 2013 and 2018. The international Telecommunication Union – a UN agency – estimates that governments will need to double the amount of spectrum available to mobile to meet demand.
Governments around the world will need to take difficult decisions to ensure that spectrum is used to the best advantage for society. The requirements of all industries that rely on spectrum – including broadcasters, the aviation industry and satellite providers – need to be assessed and prioritised.
These trade-offs are not a “zero-sum” game, as technological advances mean that historic users of spectrum can do more with less.
Mobile services already generate the greatest economic return on radio spectrum use by some margin: €269bn among the 27 members of the EU in 2013. Civil aviation is a distant second, with an economic return of €159bn. We expect this gap to increase over the next 10 years as the economic value of mobile services grows to €477bn in 2023.
The spectrum we have today for mobile is the result of treaty negotiations from many years ago. The negotiations next November provide a unique opportunity for global leaders to support the next generation of mobile networks. We urge governments to make a clear and strong call for significantly more spectrum for mobile to promote the future prosperity of their countries and enhance the lives of their citizens.
Anne Bouverot
This article appeared in the Connected Business section of the Financial Times on 30th October 2014 – the original article can be found here