Page 23 - Trends in Telecommunication Reform 2016

Figure 1.5: The number of operators by region that have launched or are planning LTE-A deployments

16 Chapter 1
14
12

10
8

6
4
2
0
Central and Developed Emerging Asia- Latin America Middle East North Sub-Saharan Western
Eastern Europe Asia-Pacific Pacific and North America Africa Europe
Africa
Source: Analysys Mason Wireless networks tracker, 2015

grade cell, to improve signal coverage indoors. service differentiation and increased customer
The end user device, which can support up to four retention. In fact, consumer behaviour studies
voice calls at once, was given free to subscribers. have shown that people like using Wi-Fi and prefer
In Bahrain, Batelco has deployed a combination it to mobile data in some cases.
of femtocells, microcells and a cell-coordinated
network (HetNet) to boost capacity, eliminating When implemented adequately, public Wi-Fi can
the need for 30-50 per cent more macrocells to effectively supplement mobile network capacity,
achieve the same capacity. particularly in dense urban areas such as business
districts and shopping areas – a phenomenon
Investing in 4G networks and small cells, however, known as "Wi-Fi offloading". Usually, however, the
does not remove the need for public Wi-Fi volume of traffic offloaded onto public Wi-Fi is low
10
infrastructure. In fact, the rise in consumer data even in developed markets. China is exceptional
consumption may drive the need for further Wi-Fi in terms of Wi-Fi usage – public Wi-Fi data traffic
investment. Mobile operators consider public Wi-Fi far exceeds that of mobile network data, but
a necessary service, although it risks cannibalizing investment in LTE is reversing this trend (see
their mobile data revenues. The upside comes with Figure 1.6).

Figure 1.6: Wireless data traffic by type and public Wi-Fi share of that traffic, China, 2012–2019

20 100%

15 80%

Traffic (TB) 10 60% Percentage of traffic

5 40%

0 0%
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Mobile Public Wi-FI Public Wi-Fi’s share

Source: Analysys Mason, 2015

Trends in Telecommunication Reform 2016 5