- A U.K. research group predicts that in 10 years many young people will have never subscribed to fixed-line broadband
- They already satisfy most of their internet needs over their phones
- 6G researchers say cellular will have the speeds and capacity to handle most users' broadband needs in 10 years
Can you imagine a future where everyone relies solely on their cellular connection, and they don’t subscribe to a fixed broadband connection at all?
Yes, it’s true that all wireless ends in a wire, but it’s also important to imagine how things might evolve over time.
Currently, the U.S. government is undertaking a big push to get everyone in the country connected to fiber broadband to close the digital divide. But ironically, a research group from the U.K. predicts that within 10 years a large contingent of young people will have never subscribed to fixed-lined broadband, and they’ll rely solely on their cellular connections for all their internet needs.
“These are not just cord-nevers, in the traditional sense of avoiding pay TV, these are consumers that will use their smartphones as their primary media consumption devices,” stated a Rethink report entitled “The Crash of 2033: Predicting the next ten years, by studying the past decade.”
Rethink envisions a future where fiber will still be there, of course, but it will be treated as an underlying utility. Young people will only care about their cellular connections or sometimes free Wi-Fi.
Future broadband customers (or not)
Fierce spoke with Alex Davies, senior analyst with Rethink, a group that not only studies telecom but also looks at young people through almost anthropologists' eyes. Davies said if you’ve been paying attention to young people, you’ll have noticed that they are not following the same paths as their parents. Many are moving back home after college or perhaps they’re moving in with roommates. They’re not in a big hurry to get married, buy a house and have kids.
From a telecommunications perspective, they’ve never spent a lot of time in front of the big-screen TV. Rather, they like to hunker in their rooms on their phones, laptops or tablets. If there is no Wi-Fi available, they’re content to use cellular for their phones or create a hotspot from their phones to use their laptops and tablets.
What do they care about some broadband pipe that feeds into their dorm room or into mom and dad’s house?
Can cellular keep up?
Of course, a lot of people in the broadband community might scoff at this future gazing. They’ll point out, like Frontier’s Executive Chairman John Stratton did at a J.P. Morgan conference recently, that companies such as Frontier are seeing their fiber customers use 1TB of data per month.
“I know from close and hard experience that the wireless networks were not engineered for that level of consumption,” said Stratton.
Fierce spoke with InterDigital, a group that does early research and innovation on wireless technologies. It makes its money by getting patents and licensing its intellectual property. Currently, it’s doing lots of work related to 6G. We asked if 6G would have the speeds and capacity to replace fiber broadband connections.
Milind Kulkarni, VP and head of wireless at InterDigital, said “Our belief is that the speeds available today with 5G are very capable of supporting anything that a consumer wants to do, essentially."
With all the spectrum we have and carrier aggregation, they support well over gigabits of speeds for video streaming and gaming," said Kulkarni. "The speed is there.”
He said 6G will tap more millimeter wave spectrum, offering even faster speeds. And he noted that 5G has spawned success with fixed wireless access. FWA could grow even more popular with 6G, allowing people to cut the cord from fixed broadband.
Doug Castor, head of wireless research at InterDigital, said from one generation of wireless technology to another, scientists want to see about a 10x gain in capacity. He said for 6G, capacity will be increased through more efficient use of spectrum with techniques such as advanced MIMO and more efficient beam forming.
Video streaming is the main driver of capacity demand, and Davies noted that young people already watch much of their video on smart phones, which have a finite amount of pixels on a screen. “You could argue that we hit that 4K stream in LTE,” said Davies. “What does 6G bring to the table?”
Castor and Kulkarni agreed on that point. But they said 6G will bring new video capabilities such as holographic displays, which will eat up more capacity. They said InterDigital is looking at improved video compression technology. And it’s also testing artificial intelligence (AI) to see how less pixels can be used in video streams without users noticing any difference.
Wi-Fi
Even though young people mainly live on their phones and laptops, they still often use Wi-Fi. But they may be oblivious that someone — either their parents or their colleges — are paying for this service, which derives from a fixed broadband connection.
Rethink postulates that when these young people get their own homes, they may be resistant to subscribing to broadband. Who wants another bill? They can always use their phones as Wi-Fi hotspots. And in 10 years, there will probably be more public Wi-Fi.
Already, several U.S. cities, including New York, offer community Wi-Fi. And in Europe, the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) is working on open Wi-Fi in cities such as Dublin, Ireland. And the Wireless Broadband Alliance is working on Wi-Fi roaming.
Freely available Wi-Fi is already common in the U.S. where we can access it in public spaces such as libraries, airports, restaurants and hotels. And the big cable companies Comcast and Charter have millions of Wi-Fi hotspots available to their broadband subscribers (and possibly those subscribers’ freeloading kids).
Davies speculates that in the future, broadband providers will devise new business models to monetize their Wi-Fi assets. Charter and Comcast already leverage their Wi-Fi networks to offload their mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) traffic. This saves them money from leasing Verizon’s network. In future, perhaps Charter and Comcast could strike deals with cities to provide public Wi-Fi.
Davies also suggested that owners of Wi-Fi networks might figure out some way to monetize those networks via advertising. “There’s a commercial interest in getting you a video feed,” he said.
Bottom line
The thing about capitalism is: if there’s a demand, then someone will provide the supply.
If young people want their phones to be their primary internet connection, and they only want one bill — from their wireless provider — then commercial interests will align to meet that demand.
Davies said operators can use fiber to “install the densification requirement,” but from the user perspective, “it’s just the phone.”
“Will technology be there in 10 years that can support what the younger generation wants? We believe the answer is ‘yes,'" Kulkarni said.
Castor added, “The business models can change to make it seem free for the user.”
What will happen to broadband providers that don’t anticipate a future where young people don’t subscribe to their services? Davies warned, “I think it’s going to creep up on them. I think they’ll say, 'I thought broadband was a safe bet.'”
Perhaps fixed broadband companies such as Charter and Comcast, which have gotten into the wireless business, will have the most versatility for an unknown future. Or perhaps the winners will be the big wireless companies that offer cellular and fixed wireless access all on one bill.