By Claus Hetting, Wi-Fi NOW CEO & Chairman
A new report by the analysts at Arthur D. Little predicts that home broadband data consumption in Europe will grow at a rate of 20% per year leading to an average monthly data consumption rate per household of a whopping 900 GB per month by 2030. Mobile data consumption will grow at a slightly higher rate but will reach just 75 GB per month representing only 8% of the home broadband consumption level, the report says.
A new report on data consumption growth in Europe authored by Arthur D. Little predicts continued strong increase in home broadband data consumption towards 2030. Meanwhile the demand for mobile data is rising somewhat faster but in the end total mobile traffic per person will reach only a small fraction – one twelfth or 8% – of home broadband consumption by 2030. The report raises important questions on the relative importance of fixed connectivity – including Wi-Fi – versus 4G and 5G mobile.
Specifically the report expects average European home broadband data consumption to grow from 225 GB per month per household in 2022 to 900 GB per month in 2030, which is equivalent to growing by factor of four over 8 years. Although the report does not touch upon the importance of Wi-Fi and unlicensed spectrum, it is hard to imagine how such giant volumes of data could be be delivered over home Wi-Fi networks without the use of the full 1.2 GHz of spectrum within the 6 GHz band.
The report is timely as the world of telecom regulation moves swiftly towards the WRC-23 – the ITU’s World Radiocommunication Conference 2023 – to be held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, late this year. During the conference the world’s regulatory authorities will vote on a range of spectrum issues including the future of the top half of the 6 GHz band, which has yet to be allocated to unlicensed use in some countries and regions, such as for example within the EU.
The report cites growth in video consumption as the most important driver with gaming, social networking, and web browsing as other growth categories. New categories including AR/VR and The Metaverse are not expected to move the consumption needle much towards 2030, the report says.
Most historical data sets – such as this and this from 2018 – show that mobile phones typically consume 70-90% of their data over Wi-Fi. In 2020 Spectrum Mobile indicated that 83% of broadband data delivered to and from Spectrum Mobile subscribers runs over Wi-Fi – read more here. It is not clear in the report if mobile broadband data in this case means the data running only over 5G networks or whether this data also includes Wi-Fi traffic on phones.
/Claus.
