Mobile Network Ownership: Wholesale, sharing and NWaaS market forecast 2015 – 2020

An important feature of the mobile network landscape is the increasingly fragmented nature of service delivery. In the 2G era, each mobile operator built its own network and was virtually the only company to provide services over it, bar roaming deals. Now there are rising numbers of MVNOs riding on the mobile networks, as well as companies providing over-the-top and WiFi-based services.

This module examines key trends, such as the rising importance of wholesale revenues to MNOs (some of which may go wholesale-only in future), and the moves towards more flexible platforms to support large numbers of network-free service providers. These include virtualized platforms and NWaaS (network as a service) offerings, sometimes controlled by the network owner and sometimes by a third party. All figures are broken down by region.

The data tables forecast the split of connections monetized over WiFi or cellular,  between providers of different kinds from MNOs to wireline operators to OTT providers and device vendors. It also forecasts the deployment of small cells and WiFi by non-MNOs to complement an MVNO deal to access the macro network, and the type of platforms which will be in place to manage all these connections, including NWaaS and SCaaS (small cell as a service).

The surveys and forecasts on which the outputs are based were conducted in November 2015 to January 2016.