Ericsson Reports on Present and Future Growth of Mobile Services

The June 2023 edition of the "Ericsson Mobility Report" was released on June 23. The updated report features high-level view of global and regional developments and trends in mobile data services as well as projected growth forecasts. Although the June 2023 report does not include any figures specific to the United States, it does contain many useful insights regarding mobile data traffic increases, progress in 5G deployment, and potential growth in fixed wireless access (FWA) for the globe and for North America.

Among the report's findings, "[t]he uptake of 5G subscriptions in North America has been stronger than expected," and year's-end 2022 it had the highest 5G subscription penetration at 41%. Included in the report is a chart showing the disappearance of legacy 3G services in North America and strong growth in 4G LTE as well as 5G. Yet although 4G subscriptions increased in 2022, the report expects those numbers to decline starting this year. According to the report's projection, in 2028, North America will have the highest 5G penetration at 91%.

The report credits the use of mid-band spectrum in North American for strong 5G services growth, and it expects there to be over 250 million subscriptions by the end of this year. And the report projects there to be about 410 million 5G subscriptions by 2028. Important to this 5G growth is FWA services. The report observes that "FWA, providing high-speed internet to homes and small businesses, has become the primary technology fueling fixed broadband growth in North America." 

 

Moreover, the report projects that average monthly mobile data usage per smartphone in North American will rise to 58 GB in 2029, and it credits this to unlimited data plans and improved 5G network capacity supporting new mobile and FWA 5G subscribers. 

 

Notably, the report also found that monthly global mobile data traffic reached 126 exabytes (EB) by the first quarter of this year – nearly double what it was just two years prior.  

 

But in order to fully support projected future increases in mobile data traffic in the U.S. – as well as support potential stronger-than-expected growth in 5G services – more spectrum will need to be made available for private commercial use. Now that the U.S. spectrum pipeline for commercial wireless services has run empty and the FCC's authority for conducting competitive bidding spectrum license auctions has lapsed, the clear policy priority should be to replenish the pipeline with more mid-band spectrum from commercial licensing and to renew the Commission's authority conduct auctions and license spectrum use on an exclusive basis.