Vodafone UK edges in front with ‘wider pipe’ approach to 5G

It’s always difficult to offer a winning position before all hands have been shown, but Vodafone looks to have stretched a nose ahead in the UK 5G race.

For the moment, we can only really judge two of the four 5G propositions in the UK, though there have also been hints from Three. With EE launching its 5G assault last month, and Vodafone switching on this week, it does seem that the latter has re-found its mojo and could challenge leadership positions in the UK connectivity standings.

As it stands, O2 and EE are sitting very comfortably in the number one and two spots respectively. With 36% and 33% market share for mobile subscriptions, according to Ovum’s WCIS, Vodafone is a distant third with 20% and Three falls away with 11% in fourth. However, that can all change very quickly, it wasn’t long ago Vodafone was the clear market leader.

Looking at the current offerings from the UK MNOs, Vodafone does look to have a more attractive offering. On the subsidised handsets front, the two are pretty much on par with Vodafone being a little bit cheaper. However, the SIM-only offering might grab the attention of a lot of people.

This is a model which we think is much more suited in the 5G era. If you believe the technologists, delivering data over 5G networks is cheaper than 4G. This is down to efficiency gains on the spectrum front, as well as improvements to antenna and the introduction of new technologies such as Massive MIMO. If it is becoming cheaper to give data to the increasingly insatiable consumer, why not offer unlimited.

Tiering on speeds is a very interesting approach. Data usage is going up for every demographic, such is life as more aspects become digitised, but the variety of ways people consume that data is becoming increasingly varied. Some will only use the internet for browsing, some focus on video consumption and others are gamers. Each different experience can be satisfied by different speed limits.

What will need to be done over the next couple of weeks and months is educating the consumer. Most consumers think faster is always better, but sometimes this is not the case. The majority of consumers could get by with mobile connectivity of 10-20 Mbps, but many think they need the fastest possible connection.

If you are in an urban setting and not able to use the internet on your device properly, the immediate assumption is that speeds are not fast enough. This might be the case, but another explanation is that there are too many people attempting to connect through the same cell site. This is network congestion, its not necessarily anything to do with speed, but too many people are clogging up the digital highway.

This is where 5G can add benefits over 4G. Think of the ‘internet’ as a water pipe. Not only does 5G make the water flow faster, it makes the pipe wider to allow more water to flow through it. This should address the network congestion challenge in various places if more people are connecting more devices to the same cell sites.

With this concept in mind, Vodafone has built the speed-tiered options; all you have to do is work-out how you use your phone, decide on a suitable speed and then you never have to worry about using up your data allocation ever again.

The one criticism we have is the pricing, which you can see below:

On the lower end of the scale, the 2 Mbps tier, we believe Vodafone has charged a bit too much. And on the upper-end, the telco probably could have charged more. The strategy appears to be gearing as many people as possible to the middle tier which effectively undermines the concept of having experience designed tiers in the first place.

The success of this initiative will entirely depend on whether Vodafone can educate the consumer on the basics on connectivity experience. The water pipe analogy is a good one to explain the difference between 5G and 4G, though it would also help to inform users of how much speed is required to do what.

How much do you need to use WhatsApp, watch YouTube or play Harry Potter; Wizards Unite, for example. The general consumer in the UK will not know the answer to this question, and unless they do, this Vodafone strategy will likely fail.