Modelled the scale of 5G eMBB investment and coverage per market in Europe together with the costs and benefits of new use cases

The problem

• Analysys Mason was commissioned to model 5G investment in Europe and the associated costs and benefits of different use cases on behalf of two leading global 5G vendors

The solution

• We partitioned our study of 5G investment into three distinct scenarios per country, which we defined as:
  • the cost and extent of commercially-led 5G enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) roll-out using a combination of new 5G bands plus legacy mobile bands (‘5G base-case’)
  • the additional investment needed to deliver near-universal geographical coverage using a low-frequency 5G layer (700MHz) (‘low-frequency 5G’)
  • the additional investment needed to extend 3.5GHz mid-band coverage beyond the base case to cover road, rail and rural use cases, plus additional deployment of mmWave (‘full 5G’)
• We assessed the costs and benefits associated with each scenario using a combination of several parameters including historical roll-out metrics from previous 4G deployments, population and site distribution data and existing 5G coverage obligations on a per-country basis
• We provided detailed country breakdowns as well as a Europe-wide aggregation of the costs and benefits of 13 new use cases

Figure: Modelled 5G base-case (5G pioneer plus legacy mobile bands) coverage in Italy

The result

• The client gained a sound understanding of the costs and benefits associated with new use cases of 5G eMBB across a wide range of European markets and 5G technology scenarios. Our clients have shared the results of our study with European regulators and policy makers in meetings and conferences