Gadget and app hunters probably disagree, but the 2024 Mobile World Congress has been poor in news for consumers and rich in its offer for companies. Above all, he has been lavish in politics, something that is not shown in the Fira pavilions but in speeches, round tables and interviews, in VIP rooms or in hotels and restaurants in Barcelona. The congress – we must not forget that it is a congress with a fair atmosphere – began with criticism of the immovable European regulation, half tempered by the elegance of Commissioner Thierry Breton and by an agreement between four operators (Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone) who tried to craft a positive message.
Read these sentences: “The current regulation is completely obsolete; It was designed more than 30 years ago with the aim of opening up to competition monopolies that are no longer monopolies. Today, some of the services are not provided by telecoms but by other types of companies, which have shifted value into their business model. We have hyperregulated operators, suffocated from an economic and fiscal point of view and, on the other hand, companies that, due to their nature and scale, are not subject to regulation or the same obligations regarding investment.” The author of the allegation is called Andrés Vicente and he is the CEO of the Ericsson subsidiary that deals with Spain and Portugal.
The relief has not ended. “Does anyone seriously believe that if there is a greater number of operators in a country, that country obtains additional economic benefit, as assumed by the regulatory criterion according to which the more supply there is, the lower the price will be and thus the consumer will have more income?” available, which will be used in other things that directly benefit the economy?
Vicente talks about Spain and Europe but relies on global arguments. First of all, Verizon, the US market leader, does not leave its territory because it knows that in any other country it would be a victim of regulation; Secondly, what incentives would a Chinese operator have to leave their market and enter another where they could not obtain a return on the capital they invest? Finally, who is getting positive returns from investing in Latin America, Africa or, without going far, Europe? Nobody.
Contrary to what it may seem, Andrés Vicente is not a pessimist, quite the opposite. He believes that in countries where there are stimuli – “like in Spain, fortunately” – investment in 5G will grow in 2024 and 2025: “It will be good 5G, Standalone, the medium bands, with low latency and high speed, associated with government programs and business use cases.” This will place Spain in a prominent place within the EU: “Our projections indicate that it will lead the penetration of 5G in medium bands in the European context.”
Network traffic is going to double: currently in Europe it is about 22 gigabytes and in five years it will be at least double. “Does the operator have the opportunity to price that additional demand so that its revenue grows? In the United States yes, in Europe no.
The extension of rural 5G is “absolutely positive” for Ericsson. The contest is published and the offers have been presented. If the deadlines are met, it should be resolved this March because the European funds must be executed before the end of 2025. Although – he warns – “perhaps we could witness the paradox of powerful bands reaching rural environments sooner than medium-sized cities: all operators have deployed 5G in large cities, to ensure traffic growth, but not all have dropped to those with 50,000 inhabitants or less.”
