2023 clocked the largest mobile traffic growth of any year to date

The 2023 increase was greater than the absolute traffic level five years earlier in 2018, says the GSMA, and the growth in traffic per mobile connection between 2023-2030 is expected to be around 2-4 times larger than in the previous seven years, depending on the region. 

The reason for highlighting this seems to be to make the point that operators are going to be dealing with increasing amounts of traffic in the future. It’s one of the stats the GSMA is using to spearhead a new report titled ‘Mobile Evolution in 6 GHz: The impact of spectrum assignment options in 6.425–7.125 GHz’.

It should be noted that the growth being highlighted in figure 2a (pulled from the report) is absolute traffic numbers, however figure 2b shows a sustained trend of decline in terms of percentage of traffic growth. The GSMA's claim is derived from the absolute, rather than percentage, growth figure.

The report argues that high capacity 6 GHz spectrum should be licensed to mobile operators ‘at sufficient, standard power levels to enable the full range of mobile use cases, indoors and outdoors, and provide maximum benefit for global digital economies.’

All this is based on research from GSMA Intelligence alongside mobile usage analysis from Ookla, and looked at how spectrum assignment in the 6.425-7.125 GHz band ‘can impact regulators’ ability to support economic growth.’

“Today’s report shows that mobile operators will need to manage significant traffic growth in their networks during the next decade,” said Luciana Camargos, Head of Spectrum at the GSMA. “The decisions made by regulators around spectrum allocation in the upper 6 GHz band will play a huge role in developing digital economies through the next phase of mobile evolution.  

“A balanced approach that maximises unlicensed spectrum in the lower 6 GHz band with licensed, standard-power mobile in the upper 6 GHz band can avoid overly complex technical solutions and power restrictions which limit the effectiveness of mobile networks. Globally harmonised conditions will support affordability and digital inclusion, and develop the world’s digital economy.” 

By way of background, the report says that the World Radiocommunication Conference 2023 (WRC-23) in Dubai, ‘harmonised’ the power limits that mobile base stations can emit in the 6 GHz band.

What the GSMA is arguing is that: “If regulators reduce these standard power limits through a desire to restrict mobile use to outdoors and theoretically increase indoor Wi-Fi spectrum, they will reduce the additional capacity 6 GHz provides for industry and consumers.”  

With reduced power, the economic benefits are lower than having a standard-power licensed band because mobile will become constrained by spectrum, claims the GSMA.

The report also claims that 70% of mobile use takes place indoors, and 85% of that uses mid-band spectrum which supports high-bandwidth data streaming. Given that, ‘there is no clear rationale for attempting to enforce an indoor/outdoor split of the band,’ we’re told.

Some concluding paragraphs in the report state: “In each of the countries considered in this study, the benefits from assigning the upper 6 GHz band for licensed mobile significantly exceed the benefits from assigning it for unlicensed use or sharing the band based on reduced IMT power levels. This is because the evidence on how mobile and Wi-Fi are currently utilised strongly suggests Wi-Fi has sufficient spectrum, if used efficiently, in the 2.4, 5 and lower 6 GHz frequencies (as well as unlicensed high bands) to meet expected traffic demand to 2035.”

“A shared use approach to the band can be considered if it helps address localised capacity constraints for Wi-Fi, but it should not be done in a manner that incentivises inefficient spectrum use and should not impose significant costs or restrictions. In particular, it should not reduce mobile network power levels such that it reduces the benefits that could be driven by increasing the capacity of 5G networks.”

It's a particularly in the weeds subject, and you can read the entirety of the 56 page report here – but the gist of its argument seems to be that if the upper 6 GHz is assigned to mobile operators as opposed to, or as well as for, wifi, then the greatest economic benefit can be realised.