Shifting Spectrum Priorities: Who are the Winners and Losers?
NCSL Spring Forum Communications, Financial Services and Interstate Commerce
Committee
Christopher Guttman-McCabe
CTIA – The Wireless Association®
Friday, April 15, 2011
Wireless Devices have Evolved to be
Multifunction and Multiform
1983 1989 1995 1996 2000 2004 2006 2007 2010
Beyond Telephones – Making Wireless Devices Multi-Function Tools
The
Virtuous
CycleApplications
& content are
developed
Innovative
devices are
developed
Advanced networks
are developed
and deployed
Spectrum is
available
Consumers increase
consumption and
demand
340,213
681,825
1,230,855
2,069,441
3,508,944
5,283,055
7,557,148
11,032,753
16,009,461
24,134,421
33,758,661
44,042,992
55,312,293
69,209,321
86,047,003
109,478,031
128,374,512
140,766,842
158,721,981
182,140,362
207,896,198
233,040,781
255,395,599
270,333,881
285,646,191
302,859,674
0
50,000,000
100,000,000
150,000,000
200,000,000
250,000,000
300,000,000
350,000,000
De
c-85
De
c-86
De
c-87
De
c-88
De
c-89
De
c-90
De
c-91
De
c-92
De
c-93
De
c-94
De
c-95
De
c-96
De
c-97
De
c-98
De
c-99
De
c-00
De
c-01
De
c-02
De
c-03
De
c-04
De
c-05
De
c-06
De
c-07
De
c-08
De
c-09
De
c-10Estimated Wireless Subscriber Connections Up More than
17 Million Year-Over-Year
Source: CTIA Semi-Annual Wireless Survey
1,4951,798
2,119 2,203 2,275 2,241
81
159
363
1,005
1,563
2,052
1
3
6
15
35
57
0
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
2,500
3,000
3,500
4,000
4,500
5,000
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Billio
ns
of
MO
Us
/ M
es
sa
ge
s
Minutes and Messages as a Measure of Wireless Usage
MOUs Text Messages MMS Messages
Minutes and Messages as a Measures of Wireless Use
Source: CTIA Semi-Annual Wireless Survey
Excludes traffic generated by web-browsing,
game-play, and content upload / downloads
60,699
102,993
299,837
510,105
659,331
845,717
0
100,000
200,000
300,000
400,000
500,000
600,000
700,000
800,000
900,000
May 2009 September 2009 April 2010 October 2010 December 2010 March 2011
Growing Numbers of App Offerings
Sources: Androlib.com, Distimo, 148apps.biz, multiple app stores, CTIA Research
Wireless Data Demand Jan. – Dec. 2010
+110% from 2009
388 Billion MB
2 times the total data
in the Library of Congresstransmitted every hour, every day!
Wireless Data Traffic
48,959
118,084
235,411
416,025
674,579
986,039
0
200,000
400,000
600,000
800,000
1,000,000
1,200,000
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Tota
l Mo
nth
ly T
era
byt
es
North American Mobile Data Traffic Will Grow 20 Times from 2010 to 2015
Source: Cisco Systems Visual Networking Index, 2011
Mobile Data Projections
• Coda Research – Number of wireless internet users will grow from 84 million to nearly 160 million by 2015. An estimated 98% of mobile web traffic will come from smartphone users.
• Cisco Systems – North American mobile data traffic will grow almost 20 times from 2010 to 2015.
• Informa Telecoms & Media Group – Smartphone users are expected to more than double from 90 million in 2010 to more than 211 million in 2015. Today the average smartphone user accounts for 11 times more traffic than the average non-smartphone user.
• Yankee Group – Mobile data traffic will grow 23 times from 2009 to 2014.
Source: FCC OBI Mobile Broadband: The Benefits of Additional Spectrum, Oct. 2010
Mobile Data Projections
USA Japan Germany U.K. France Italy Canada Spain S. Korea Mexico
Subscribers** 297.3m 116.4m 107.1m 75.3m 61.5m 90.0m 24.3m 55.5m 50.2m 88.4m
Average Consumers’
Minutes of Use per
Month**804 142 127 200 233 148 372 153 302 185
Average Revenue per
Minute – A Measure
of the Effective Price
per Voice Minute**
$0.04 $0.22 $0.11 $0.10 $0.13 $0.12 $0.11 $0.16 $0.08 $0.05
Top Two Carriers
Percentage of the
Total Market**62.5% 76.6% 65.9% 66.2% 82.6% 68.1% 66.5% 74.3% 82.2% 91.9%
Efficient Use of
Spectrum --
Subscribers Served
per MHz of Spectrum
Allocated
726,095 335,556 174,150 213,387 161,732 298,507 118,298 154,913 173,103 420,800
Spectrum Assigned
for Commercial
Wireless Use409.5 MHz* 347 MHz 615 MHz 352.8 MHz 380 MHz 301.4 MHz 205 MHz 358 MHz 290 MHz 210 MHz
Potentially Usable
Spectrum/In the
Pipeline***50 MHz 400 MHz
Recently
auctioned
350 MHz
355 MHz 250 MHz 262 MHz 260 MHz 262 MHz 140 MHz 30 MHz
*Figure includes AWS-1, 700 MHz spectrum not yet in use and 55.5 MHz of spectrum at 2.5 GHz.
** Glen Campbell, et al., “Global Wireless Matrix 4Q10,” Merrill Lynch, Dec. 23, 2010, at Tables 1-2.
The FCC on Over-The-Air versus Multichannel Video
Facts
• Wireless usage is exploding.
• Wireless use is evolving.
• Carriers are incorporating unlicensed into their business models.
• Carriers are pursuing efficiency-enhancing technologies.
• Carriers spent $33 billion at the last two auctions.
• We are behind Japan, Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Canada, Spain and South Korea in identifying spectrum.
• Over-the-air broadcast viewership continues to decline.
• There are significant spectrum resources that have been allocated to the broadcasters that are not being used at all.
• In the D.C. market there are 18 full power stations, 3 class A low power, and 7 LPTV stations. That is 114 MHz of spectrum unused in the DC market.
Final Fact
We need to get spectrum to market.
We need to get past the debate about whether spectrum is needed, and move toward what do the broadcasters need as part of the process and how do we implement incentive auction
legislation.
