This post originally appeared on June 5 on my LinkedIn feed, which is now my main platform for both short posts and longer-form articles. It can be found here, along with the comment stream. Please follow / connect to me on LinkedIn, to receive regular updates (about 1-3 / week)
When I saw that Arthur D. Little had published a report on “The evolution of data growth in Europe”, on behalf of ETNO Association & GSMA, I rolled my eyes.
Both organisations have previously published terrible studies by consultants, riddled with flawed assumptions and dodgy multiplier "fiddle factors". I’ve loudly criticised Axon and Coleago reports related to the (un)#fairshare and #6GHz #spectrum debates respectively.
So I started the ADL report with trepidation, not helped by a strange typo / editing error in the first paragraph.
But actually, the report is pretty good, and I broadly agree with both methodology and conclusions, albeit with one major caveat.
It estimates usage of home and mobile broadband on the basis of hours-per-day of active use of heavy applications such as video streaming, gaming and possible metaverse-type experiences.
I’ve used GB-per-hour myself, to model passenger data-traffic demand on trains. It makes more sense than the usual Gbps, as most applications are “bursty”. It also fits the typical heuristics of human behaviour. How many seconds a day do you spend on social media?
The central prediction of 20% growth in fixed traffic and 25% for mobile usage seems reasonable. I could argue for 25/20 rather than 20/25, but it's fine as a rough estimate.
Importantly these rates for the next few years are well within the bounds of both fixed broadband (moving to #FTTP) and mobile (on #5G) without incremental investments in extra capacity, beyond the main "generational" shift & CAPEX. And that is driven by government policy and competition, not traffic load and congestion. The report convincingly shows that nobody really needs/values more than 100Mbps for current apps, so #gigabit networks have plenty of headroom.
My main criticism is there is no analysis of mobile device traffic carried over fixed networks and #WiFi. Smartphones used at home for video, gaming or social media will be c80% on Wi-Fi, and indoor usage is c80% of the total.
The report also talks about AI pre-emptively downloading content for “infinite scrolling”, but doesn't suggest it could be smart enough to do so mostly over cheap / low-energy fixed connections. (IMO, by 2030, governments may *mandate* cellular offload via neutral-host or Wi-Fi for indoor use).
I agree with the report's assertions that VR is in an indoor/fixed application, that most #IoT traffic is a rounding-error and that #Web3 is probably irrelevant. The #metaverse scenarios seem mostly plausible.
One area I think ADL underestimates is fixed broadband for video streaming. While Netflix and YouTube are “active” viewing, historically, many people just leave broadcast TV switched on, even if nobody is in the room except the cat.
If TV really goes online-only, then that becomes a genuine “waste” of capacity, unless you can advertise to pets.
Overall - really quite good analysis, which (ironically, given the sponsors) fatally undermines the #InternetTrafficTax rhetoric.
Both organisations have previously published terrible studies by consultants, riddled with flawed assumptions and dodgy multiplier "fiddle factors". I’ve loudly criticised Axon and Coleago reports related to the (un)#fairshare and #6GHz #spectrum debates respectively.
So I started the ADL report with trepidation, not helped by a strange typo / editing error in the first paragraph.
But actually, the report is pretty good, and I broadly agree with both methodology and conclusions, albeit with one major caveat.
It estimates usage of home and mobile broadband on the basis of hours-per-day of active use of heavy applications such as video streaming, gaming and possible metaverse-type experiences.
I’ve used GB-per-hour myself, to model passenger data-traffic demand on trains. It makes more sense than the usual Gbps, as most applications are “bursty”. It also fits the typical heuristics of human behaviour. How many seconds a day do you spend on social media?
The central prediction of 20% growth in fixed traffic and 25% for mobile usage seems reasonable. I could argue for 25/20 rather than 20/25, but it's fine as a rough estimate.
Importantly these rates for the next few years are well within the bounds of both fixed broadband (moving to #FTTP) and mobile (on #5G) without incremental investments in extra capacity, beyond the main "generational" shift & CAPEX. And that is driven by government policy and competition, not traffic load and congestion. The report convincingly shows that nobody really needs/values more than 100Mbps for current apps, so #gigabit networks have plenty of headroom.
My main criticism is there is no analysis of mobile device traffic carried over fixed networks and #WiFi. Smartphones used at home for video, gaming or social media will be c80% on Wi-Fi, and indoor usage is c80% of the total.
The report also talks about AI pre-emptively downloading content for “infinite scrolling”, but doesn't suggest it could be smart enough to do so mostly over cheap / low-energy fixed connections. (IMO, by 2030, governments may *mandate* cellular offload via neutral-host or Wi-Fi for indoor use).
I agree with the report's assertions that VR is in an indoor/fixed application, that most #IoT traffic is a rounding-error and that #Web3 is probably irrelevant. The #metaverse scenarios seem mostly plausible.
One area I think ADL underestimates is fixed broadband for video streaming. While Netflix and YouTube are “active” viewing, historically, many people just leave broadcast TV switched on, even if nobody is in the room except the cat.
If TV really goes online-only, then that becomes a genuine “waste” of capacity, unless you can advertise to pets.
Overall - really quite good analysis, which (ironically, given the sponsors) fatally undermines the #InternetTrafficTax rhetoric.
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