The Italian government recently completed its sale of wireless spectrum, which has been earmarked as suitable for future 5G services.
The auction ran for 14 days and saw 171 rounds of bidding, raising over €6.55 billion. This was more than €4 billion higher than the government’s minimum target.
But the high prices paid for frequencies have raised eyebrows—and not just in Italy.
The market for fixed broadband services in the Asia-Pacific region has expanded rapidly in recent years, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17 percent between 2005 and 2017.
The region was home to more than 549 million fixed internet customers at the end of 2017, up 14 percent from 482 million 12 months earlier.
Europe’s wireless market has seen customer totals decline in recent years as operators place less emphasis on winning new users and more on earning from their existing subscribers while wiping inactive accounts.
There were around 1.045 billion cellular subscribers across Western and Eastern Europe at the end of 2017, down from 1.048 billion a year earlier.
At it’s peak in 2015 there were 1.052 billion subscribers.
The fixed broadband market in Africa has witnessed continued growth in recent years, despite a household penetration rate that remains in single digits.
Only 7 percent of African households subscribed to high speed internet services at the end of 2017. (Compare that to the Middle East’s 38 percent, which is next in line.)
The fixed broadband market in Latin America and the Caribbean has undergone steady subscriber take-up in recent years, with a compound annual growth rate of 12.9 percent between the end of 2004 and end-2017.
The region was home to 77.4 million fixed high speed internet customers at the end of 2017, up from 72.4 million a year earlier.
Recent developments in the wireless market in North America have centered on cellular operators’ preparations for future 5G technology. As we discussed in a blog post last May, the main providers in the U.S. have been busying themselves with trials, while preparations are also being made over the border in Canada.
Things are now moving closer to the first pre-commercial launches; we’ll have a look at these below as part of a wider round-up of the region’s wireless sector.
The Asia-Pacific region accounts for more than half of the world’s 7.7 billion wireless subscribers, but it remains a region of extremes. It’s home to some of the most advanced mobile markets as well as some of the least developed. While one country boasts the largest 4G LTE market on the planet, others have yet to offer licenses for LTE services.