New Wireless Adds Expected to Decline Due to Coronavirus; T-Mobile Gets Temporary Spectrum

“In the short term, traffic will move from dense urban wireless networks to suburban wired ones,” MoffettNathanson’s Craig Moffett told us. “It’s reasonable to assume that it will move back after all this is over, but think about how much money has been spent on densifying urban wireless networks to support huge amounts of traffic in social gathering places like stadiums, arenas, and shopping malls,” he said: “We could see some lasting damage to the whole notion of social gathering, and that might change where operators want to deploy their capital.”

Retail store closures “will clearly cause some disruption to sub growth in the back half of the Q1,” Wells Fargo’s Jennifer Fritzsche told investors Monday. “Depending on how long these store closures last, it likely will have an impact on Q2 levels as well.” With more people homebound, the traffic increase will be felt more on wired than traditional wireless networks, she predicted.

Network deployment likely will slow down with “fewer construction crews able and willing to do the work right now,” said Tom Struble, tech policy manager at the R Street Institute. Carriers are likely to be more focused on serving current customers and less on adding new ones, he said. Struble noted providers took a pledge last week that no services will be canceled or late fees charged for the next two months (see 2003130066). “That probably won't be a big deal for either AT&T or Verizon, but that may hurt T-Mobile's efforts to transition legacy Sprint subscribers over to the new network,” he said. The FCC said Monday 116 more smaller broadband and telecom providers have taken the pledge.

Since 75% of wireless adds come through retail stores, there should be a slowing of activity, emailed Roger Entner of Recon Analytics. Ninety percent of people are “90% of the time in the same places,” he said. Video places the heaviest demands, but networks are built for the busiest time of the day in the evening when people are usually at home, he said. “People watching video during the day because they are stuck at home will minimally impact networks as you are just extending busy hour,” he said. But video resolution will go down as networks get more crowded, he said: “If congestion hits, the first thing to go is 4k video as you can serve five HD viewers for every 4k stream.”

“Our members are busy adding subs and adjusting their networks to the ‘new normal’ traffic dynamics,” a Wireless ISP Association spokesperson said: “Some of that is out of their hands with apps and edge services themselves being overloaded. … They are actively engaged in helping their customers make it through the crisis.”

Dish Network, Comcast, NewLevel, LB License, Channel 51, Omega and Bluewater are among the companies agreeing to make unused 600 MHz spectrum available, to T-Mobile. “The company requested this authority to make it easier for Americans to participate in telehealth, distance learning, and telework, and simply remain connected while practicing recommended ‘social distancing,’” the FCC said: “T-Mobile also indicated that this authority would enable it to be prepared to meet the needs of first responders.”

“This should provide a noticeable upgrade to the performance of T-Mobile’s network,” Lightshed’s Walter Piecyk told investors. Piecyk noted Dish owns 20 MHz of the band nationwide and Comcast 10 MHz across its footprint. “Dish’s spectrum alone should triple T-Mobile’s current LTE deployments on 600 MHz in most markets,” he said.