December 2019 marked the tenth anniversary of the world’s first commercial LTE network launch. Scandinavian telco Telia paved the way in Stockholm and Oslo way back in 2009.
As for the decade that followed? Let’s take a closer look.
The government of Hong Kong has completed a round of 5G spectrum auctions, having sold frequencies in the 3.3GHz, 3.5GHz, 4.9GHz, and 26GHz ranges this year. The sales raised a total of HK$1.91 billion ($244 million) in spectrum utilization fees (SUFs).
The territory is looking to be among the front-runners in the race to launch 5G networks in the Asia-Pacific region.
Mobile termination rates (MTRs) have been falling steadily over the past decade. That trajectory is set to continue through the next few years.
Under the Calling Party Pays (CPP) system, which applies to the bulk of mobile markets worldwide, incoming calls are free and the cost of the call is covered by the originating user. Termination rates are designed to allow cellcos at the receiving end of a call to recoup their costs in these markets.
The Philippines has moved one step closer to breaking the cellular market duopoly of well-established operators PLDT/Smart and Globe Telecom.
Mindanao Islamic Telephone Company (Mislatel)–the new major player (NMP) that was licensed in November 2018–has formally been issued its Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN). This paves the way for a planned commercial launch next year.
As more and more 5G mobile networks are launched, we’ve become curious about how the market will fare in the coming years.
According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Forecast Service, the cellular market as a whole will be home to almost 9 billion subscriptions by the end of 2025, up from around 7.8 billion in December 2018. This excludes fixed-wireless and machine-to-machine/internet of things connections.
Spain-based telecom infrastructure firm Cellnex announced a series of deals to acquire mobile towers in three European countries.
The $3 billion (EUR2.7 billion) transaction will see Cellnex buying network equipment from Iliad in France and Italy, as well as Salt in Switzerland.