Europe’s telecom operators are perpetuating myths astir net postulation growth. On 26 September 2022, CEOs of 16 telecom firms stated “that the largest postulation generators should marque a just publication to the sizable costs they presently enforce connected European networks.” They accidental they fearfulness a scarcity of integer infrastructure to enactment this traffic. Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica, and Vodafone did the same successful February erstwhile they said that net postulation maturation was 50%! Neither defined a clip period, nor what portion they measured in.
But portion that 50% maturation fig is intended to dependable high, it doesn’t really archer america thing astir Europe’s net infrastructure and whether it is equipped to cope. It’s astir arsenic utile arsenic saying we request much highways without knowing however galore cars are connected the roads we already have.
A assortment of sources let america to link immoderate of the dots. It is important to enactment that “traffic” tin beryllium understood arsenic highest postulation oregon full traffic. The favoritism intelligibly matters. Total postulation successful immoderate web adds up to ample numbers, but congestion lone occurs erstwhile highest postulation exceeds disposable capacity. A road tin grip galore much cars successful a full time than during unreserved hour.
Deutsche Telekom’s Senior Vice President for Group Public and Regulatory Affairs said successful a January 2022 blog post: “YouTube generates the astir information postulation connected Telekom’s mobile network: In 2021, it averaged 357 terabytes per day, an summation of a singular 96 percent implicit the erstwhile year.” He concluded: “One happening is certain: unchecked increases successful postulation volumes caused and monetized by a fewer ample Internet platforms are not sustainable.”
Ominous arsenic it whitethorn sound, this is not that important astatine each erstwhile those large numbers are translated to numbers you and I understand. 357 terabytes per time for YouTube connected the T-Mobile web is lone 7 megabytes (MB) per lawsuit per day, oregon little than 30 seconds of video astatine 2 megabits per 2nd (Mbps). T-Mobile has 53.2 cardinal customers connected its German network.
7MB is the equivalent of 5 of those aged 3.5 inch floppy disks you mightiness retrieve from the nineties! The lone mode this benignant of postulation is unsustainable is if T-Mobile Germany really turns retired to beryllium utilizing floppy disks and Deutsche Post to nonstop that postulation to its customers by post.
Do Orange, Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, and Telefónica truly person a crushed to beryllium disquieted astir postulation growth? And what bash they archer their investors and others astir this? Let’s look astatine immoderate of the large web providers 1 by one.
Orange: Existing capableness tin sorb summation successful use
Telecom firms archer antithetic stories depending connected their audience. For example, Orange doesn’t notation postulation anyplace successful its fiscal reporting, which seems unusual if it is truthful important to their CEO.
A blog station published by Orange during the COVID-19 pandemic stated that the lockdown shouldn’t pb to congestion: “In effect, the networks are made to woody with postulation peaks, which usually instrumentality spot successful the evening, successful peculiar erstwhile high-audience events are shown (such arsenic large sporting events oregon definite fashionable TV series). The existing capacities tin truthful sorb the summation successful connections that we are seeing astatine the moment.” Orange’s absorption praises the caller Nokia routers that tin grip up to 230 terabit per 2nd (Tbps) per router. The router tin “gracefully germinate our networks arsenic we look to negociate some planned and unexpected demands successful a sustainable way.” So, is 230TBbps per router capable capableness for the postulation Orange’s web has to handle?
Fortunately, determination is nationalist information disposable connected postulation maturation connected the web of Orange. The French regulator Arcep publishes a yearly report connected the magnitude of net postulation exchanged to and from the 4 largest French net work providers (ISPs), including Orange France. In 2021, full highest net interconnection postulation was 35.6 terabit per 2nd (Tbps), positive an further 7.5Tbps of on-net postulation by contented transportation networks (CDNs), for a full of 43Tbps astatine the extremity of 2021.
This means that the full magnitude of net postulation exchanged by French ISPs successful 2021 saw a 25% summation successful highest interconnection postulation year-on-year. In the aforesaid report, Arcep says the interconnection capableness of ISPs successful 2021 was supra 95Tbps, up 40% from 67Tbps successful 2020. That 95Tbps is the capableness of the lines connecting these 4 French ISPs to each different 75,000 networks that marque up the Internet. This means that determination was 2.7 times much capableness disposable successful France than the interconnection postulation that was really generated.
Terabits per 2nd whitethorn not beryllium casual to understand, truthful we tin construe that magnitude of postulation into what it means per subscriber. With 30 cardinal broadband subscribers successful France, this is conscionable 1.5Mbps of postulation connected mean per subscriber. French consumers, whose transportation velocity is often supra 1Gbps, shouldn’t interest astir the network’s quality to grip 1.5Mbps of traffic, which is conscionable 0.15% of the existent capableness of their connection.
It does look that with routers that person a capableness of hundreds of Tbps, and existent highest postulation of French telecom firms astatine astir 43Tbps, Orange is close successful saying that its existing capableness tin sorb the increase. It besides means that determination is neither the 50% maturation successful postulation that its CEO claimed earlier this year, nor that determination is simply a scarcity of integer infrastructure disposable to transportation that postulation – au contraire!
Vodafone: Costs are falling faster than postulation is growing
Vodafone is besides telling its investors not to worry: portion it does notation 50% postulation maturation for fixed and mobile data, it states that this is aggregated information usage implicit the time successful exabytes – not highest traffic. However, networks are besides built to withstand highest information use. Peak postulation has grown successful 2 years with 30% connected fixed and 75% connected mobile according to Vodafone. That’s 14% maturation per twelvemonth connected fixed and 32% maturation connected mobile. Vodafone has, however, gone truthful acold arsenic to reassure investors that costs are falling faster than maturation successful traffic.
Deutsche Telekom saw lone 20% maturation and Telefónica doesn’t interest either
Deutsche Telekom doesn’t notation its postulation successful yearly reports, but successful an interrogation with the German consulting steadfast WIK it confirmed that highest postulation maturation successful Germany was 20% per annum until the pandemic. This is rather the quality from the 50%, oregon adjacent 97%, Deutsche Telekom stated elsewhere. COVID didn’t pb to a postulation boost connected Deutsche Telekom’s web successful portion due to the fact that streaming services voluntarily reduced video bandwidth oregon accrued compression.
WIK says: “The postulation boost that occurred successful France owed to COVID-19 cannot beryllium observed successful the aforesaid mode successful Germany according to Deutsche Telekom’s observations. Although postulation inactive roseate sharply successful Q4/2019, it fell again successful March 2020 arsenic a effect of [initiatives] to trim the solution of video services (from HD to SD). The classical seasonal postulation patterns look to predominate the COVID-19 power again.”
At the commencement of the pandemic successful 2020, Telefónica saw a 40% highest postulation increase, but it was good equipped to grip this. It congratulated itself connected its robust infrastructure, suggesting that acold from struggling, telcos are perfectly equipped to woody with existent levels of traffic. Telefónica’s Corporate Regulation Manager precocious stated that traffic maturation successful Europe has been 32% implicit the past decade, oregon a 16-fold increase. That is not adjacent adjacent to the 50% summation the CEO of Telefónica cited, which would person been a 57-fold increase. In its elaborate fiscal reports, postulation levels oregon associated costs are not mentioned astatine each by Telefónica.
So, nary of the 4 telecom firms whose CEO wrote that missive successful February, calling connected EU lawmakers to present web usage fees, look to person immoderate crushed to interest astir postulation maturation oregon web capacity.
How bash different telcos fare?
It is not lone these 4 large players that person demonstrated they tin easy grip postulation growth. BT is 1 of the fewer web operators to spell into item astir the postulation connected its network. In 2022, BT told its investors that its full postulation highest – for broadband, concern (ethernet), and mobile – had been 28Tbps, with a 1Tbps highest for mobile and the remaining 27Tbps for broadband and business. This translates to astir 2.5-3Mbps per BT broadband customer.
The COVID-19 lockdowns weren’t hard for BT to grip either. On 20 March 2020, BT explained that traffic maturation is good wrong manageable limits and determination is plentifulness of headroom for growth. At that clip its highest was 17.5Tbps and daytime highest was 7.5Tbps. Although postulation has increased, the maturation of highest postulation has been rather stable. Peak postulation maturation was 28% from 2021 to 2022, but lone 10% from 2021 to 2022 connected fixed broadband. BT has besides demonstrated successful a graphic however postulation during the lockdowns was distributed otherwise implicit the people of the time from earlier and after. This whitethorn mean much gigabytes per idiosyncratic of postulation per day, but not a higher postulation highest to handle.
The bandwidth usage per subscriber that BT reports is comparable to different telcos and ISPs. KPN successful the Netherlands has published a wholesale connection for FTTH that includes 5Mbps postulation with 21% maturation per year. Other ISPs person to wage €1.34/month for this, oregon a specified 27 cents per Mbps monthly.
SKV Veendam delivers fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) internet to 11,000 customers successful a municipality successful the northbound of the Netherlands. Unlike astir ISPs, it publishes its postulation stats successful existent time. This provides invaluable penetration into an full town’s net use. During a “normal” evening highest postulation is astir 26Gbps, oregon 2.5 Mbps per subscriber. On the evening of the precise fashionable Formula One Mexican Grand Prix, each the other unrecorded streaming amounted to a full postulation highest of – hold for it – 3Mbps per subscriber and 33Gbps successful total! Since SKV has 2 times 40Gbps of redundant capacity, it could endure an outage of fractional of its web and inactive beryllium capable to service each its customers. Similar to what Arcep reports for the 4 French telcos, SKV has 2.5-3 times much capableness disposable than it needs to grip utmost highest traffic.
Conclusion
So, successful spite of telecom CEOs’ claims, full net postulation and postulation maturation successful Europe conscionable isn’t that singular astatine all. Their ain firms’ presentations to shareholders and information shared by researchers conscionable beryllium that. Indeed, if fibre net has a capableness of a gigabit oregon much per customer, but we lone usage a fewer Mbps connected average, telcos person much than capable breathing country and nary crushed to complain.
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