Understanding the Likely Impacts of Mvnos in Canada
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
www.pwc.com/ca Understanding the likely impacts of MVNOs in Canada Part 2: Impact on Canada’s transition to 5G July 2020 Contents Executive summary 3 1. The importance of 5G to Canada 5 2. What can we learn from the global 3G and 4G transitions? 8 3. The opportunity cost of delayed 5G rollout in Canada 15 4. A 2030 lookback: What could delayed 5G rollout mean for 18 Canadians? Executive summary This paper is the second in a two-part study Canada can avoid the potentially large that aims to assess the potential impacts of opportunity cost associated with a delayed or possible regulation favouring mobile virtual scaled-back transition. network operators (MVNOs) in Canada. The Our approach in Part 2 comprises three steps: study is timely, given that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications 1. We examine how regulations mandating Commission (CRTC) is currently considering wholesale MVNO access slowed mandating that mobile network operators network adoption during the historical (MNOs) provide wholesale network access to 3G-to-4G transitions across a set of peer MVNOs, with the intent of introducing one or countries focused on Europe more new competitors as a means to reduce 2. We apply the learnings from global case consumer wireless prices. studies, combined with our own analysis, to estimate how the transition to 5G in Previously, in Part 1, we explored how the Canada over the next decade would be introduction of regulation mandating wholesale impacted by the introduction of MVNO MVNO access would impact the Canadian regulation telecom industry and economy. We showed that 3. We estimate the economic opportunity while it would likely reduce consumer wireless cost, in terms of lost gross domestic prices for some Canadians, it would lead to an product (GDP), associated with deferred unhealthy Canadian telecom industry and result 5G network adoption in Canada over the in unintended negative consequences for the next decade Canadian economy. Now, in Part 2, we explore how mandating wholesale MVNO access could impact Canada’s transition to the next generation of wireless communications technology, known as 5G. Several countries around the world have already started to deploy 5G, and the benefits of an early transition are expected to be socioeconomically profound. Therefore, the proposal of any regulation that could jeopardize Canada’s 5G transition deserves careful scrutiny, so that PwC 3 Key findings of the report The performance improvements associated Should regulation mandating wholesale MVNO with 5G compared to 4G are expected to access be introduced in Canada, a similar story enable use cases across many sectors of the should be expected to play out during the Canadian economy, unlocking significant upcoming 5G transition. We estimate that socioeconomic value for Canadians. However, effective 5G coverage—the share of population our assessment concludes that new regulation that receives 5G coverage with sufficient quality mandating wholesale access for MVNOs could to realize economically beneficial use lower the financial ability and incentive of cases—would by 2030 be reduced from 95% MNOs to make the substantial investment with no regulation to 75% with regulation. As a required to build 5G networks, and that this result, the realization of important use cases could result in deferred and curtailed 5G rollout (e.g. smart factories) would be impacted, and across Canada. Canada could forgo many of the expected socioeconomic benefits of 5G over the next Comparing the historical 3G-to-4G transitions in decade. In addition, these effects would likely Europe to those in other regions, we identify widen the already problematic digital divide three key factors that contributed to the relative between urban and rural Canadians. delay in 4G adoption in Europe. First, coordination issues between the EU and its By delaying the realization of 5G use cases and member states delayed the release of 4G therefore stymying innovation, the deferral and spectrum. Second, expensive 3G spectrum curtailment of 5G deployment in Canada carries auctions led to prolonged 3G business cases. a significant opportunity cost. We estimate that Third, fragmented markets with consistent price in the coming decade, Canada could incur a competition lead to a downward trend in cumulative loss of at least $57B in GDP, with wireless average revenue per user (ARPU), manufacturing, natural resources, and public creating a lack of operators with the scale and administration sectors being most impacted. balance sheet strength to invest in 4G. For Our analysis in Part 2 of this study supports the some of these case studies, the competitive conclusions made in Part 1, namely that pressure came from the entry of MVNOs. By mandating wholesale MVNO access in order to examining the 3G-to-4G transitions in Canada reduce consumer wireless prices will lead to an and a set of 12 case studies, we find that unhealthy Canadian telecom industry and result declining ARPU, due to regulation mandating in unintended negative consequences for the wholesale MVNO access or otherwise, is Canadian economy. associated with slower adoption of 4G. PwC 4 1. The importance of 5G to Canada The arrival of 5G is anticipated to be a Key performance improvements of 5G1 significant disruptor with wide-ranging socioeconomic benefits. 5G is not just a major Higher peak speeds—up to 10 Gigabits per increase in speeds for consumers: its second (Gbps) vs. <1 Gbps for 4G—allowing faster connections and larger data transfer in capabilities will unlock wide-ranging new use a given timeframe cases, business models and socioeconomic opportunities and will create significant value Higher possible connection density in busy for businesses and government. PwC’s areas (up to 1M devices per square kilometre research suggests that the value created vs. 100K for 4G) through improved wireless connectivity for consumers will be eclipsed by the value created Lower latency of communication2—as low as through its usage across Canada’s diverse 1 millisecond, vs. 50 milliseconds for industrial sectors. 4G—enabling ultra-reliable, time-sensitive wireless communications So what is 5G? The fifth generation of wireless communication technology represents a step Greater power efficiency, leading to lower change in improvement to voice experience, costs, longer battery life and enabling internet data throughput, efficiency, and capacity of things (IoT) applications compared to previous generations. As we enter the next evolution of wireless technology, 5G Greater security, allowing ultra-reliable offers order-of-magnitude improvements in connections for mission-critical applications performance compared to 4G. Five key where failure is not an option and where data improvements are highlighted on the right. privacy is a concern Journey With 2G came digital phone calls, With 4G, fast broadband internet and lower latency messaging, and limited multimedia such as (compared to 3G) became the norm, enabling many new to 5G picture messaging, music and ringtones uses for cell phones, e.g. high-definition video, innovative apps like ride sharing, and improved mobile gaming 2G 3G 1G 5G 1990s 4G 2000s 2020s 1980s 2010s First generation of technology, now 3G enabled more meaningful data 5G brings order-of-magnitude known as 1G, allowed voice-only speeds, the advent of smartphones performance improvements, with use cases analogue wireless service (phone calls) brough mobile internet and apps to users creating more value than ever before 1. PwC and World Economic Forum, “The Impact of 5G: Creating New Value Across Industries and Society,” 2020. 2. Latency refers to the amount of time it takes (delay) for information to be communicated from one location to another. PwC 5 Examples of 5G use cases and socioeconomic impacts for Canada Socioeconomic Industry sector Example use cases Key 5G enablers impacts Real-time precision control of machinery High throughput and capacity, low Increased productivity; Manufacturing using augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR) latency required for AR/VR control increased worker safety Increased productivity, Mining and Autonomous drilling and extraction Ultra-fast secure connections for safety and environmental oil and gas equipment; hazard sensing mission critical applications sustainability Remote monitoring of patients using High power usage efficiency for Lower healthcare costs Healthcare connected medical devices, enabling wearable/implanted devices over and better patient preventative and decentralized care long lifetimes (e.g. 10+ years) outcomes Drones and sensor networks to monitor High number of distributed Increased food safety and Agriculture soil conditions, crop development, and sensors generating large data quality; reduced waste and livestock health volumes per square kilometer environmental impact Ultra-reliable, low latency Greater efficiency, reduced Transportation Remote vehicle health monitoring; connections for vehicle-to-vehicle emissions and fewer and logistics autonomous vehicles and vehicle-to-infrastructure use accidents Smart-city infrastructure, e.g. smart Cost effective broadband in rural Improved quality of life in Public metering; analytics-driven decision areas, secure connectivity to high both urban and rural areas; administration making; rural fixed wireless access volume of sensory devices minimized digital divide By virtue of the major performance The chart below presents a range of estimates improvements associated with 5G, the number for the cumulative global value