Now that all four leading U.S. mobile service providers now offer some form of unlimited usage plan, consumer behavior and service provider behavior become crucial. The big objection many service providers have had with "unlimited" plans is the additional stress it might place on networks that might be ill-suited to rapid and unexpected changes in the demand curve.
With growing video consumption, that concern is well-founded. In other markets, consumers have shown a tendency to decrease offload access, and increase mobile network access, when the cost of mobile network access suddenly becomes much more affordable. Could that happen in the U.S. market? To some extent, it should.
Such additional demand is less dangerous when a network has plenty of spare capacity, either because networks are relatively lightly loaded, or because spectrum and network assets are plentiful.
It is not so clear that Verizon or AT&T enjoy that advantage, for example, while Sprint and T-Mobile US arguably are better positioned, in that regard.
Will consumer usage increase, and by how much, where and when? Will service providers keep the unlimited offers prominent in their marketing efforts?
If mobile network usage profiles change, how will that affect quality of experience on the various networks? And what will mobile service providers have to do to maintain quality in the face of increased network demand? How much can they do, near term?
In other words, will network congestion suddenly become a much-bigger issue? And what will mobile service providers do to alleviate any such changes?
Though the rankings will change after the final results of the 600-MHz auction are concluded, mobile spectrum holdings might start to matter in the U.S. market, as all of the four biggest mobile service providers offer unlimited usage. Since that tends to increase consumer consumption, mobile operators, consumers and investors will be watching not only revenue and profit trends, but potential new stress on networks, in terms of quality.
Before the additional 600-MHz spectrum to be added, U.S. mobile service providers had about 650 MHz of licensed capacity.
Eventually, those figures will be vastly eclipsed by all the new spectrum to be made available, plus spectrum sharing and offload. Millimeter wave spectrum will eventually have a big role. In the near term, only offload is going to help in the near term, and even that help could be limited if consumers start relying on the mobile network more heavily in the wake of the unlimited plans.
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