As is true in any value chain, major innovations such as a new mobile platform (2G, 3G, 4G, 5G) will tend to produce a few key changes in user behavior and app experience. For example, though some would include a wider range of new use cases, most of us could agree that new apps or use cases “nearly everyone” uses can be identified for each mobile generation.
Though we sometimes forget to note the developments, 2G also enabled widespread use of call waiting, caller ID, and voicemail.
The 3G network added picture messaging and multimedia text messaging as well as mobile gaming.
The 4G network added Wi-Fi calling, mobile offload to Wi-Fi, use of mobile hotspots, full web functionality on the mobile device (including full motion video) and, for some customers, mobile substitution for home broadband.
The new 5G network is still developing new use cases, but fixed wireless to support home broadband is clearly the earliest case of a new mass market innovation, and among the few new features to produce direct new revenue for mobile operators.
Device features also progressed, with at least some generally-available features on most makes and models.
And although we have to make somewhat broad estimates, revenue sources have continued to evolve in importance with each digital mobile generation. Though voice drove virtually 100 percent of all revenues in the analog era (1G), revenue sources have shifted in the digital era.
Proponents of every mobile next-generation network always talk about all the new use cases each new platform can provide. Indirectly, it matters. But even were no direct changes in use cases occurred, each new mobile generation would still be essential, and for the same reasons home broadband capabilities must advance over time.
People consume more bandwidth every year, require faster connections every year, and any ISP than fails to keep pace will go out of business.
So, at some important level, "new use cases" do not matter. Those will develop. But mobile ISPs must adopt the new platforms for another, more basic reason: they want to stay in business.
And each next-generation mobile network is primarily the way additional capacity gets added, cell splitting notwithstanding.
That noted, we still can point to new use cases that seem to develop over time. It simply helps to recall that such new use cases are not the main reason each next-generation mobile network "must" be adopted.
At a high level, voice has receded and internet access has become dominant. Text messaging became important in the 3G era. And even if the basic “subscription” continues to drive the bulk of revenue, internet access increasingly drives the value of a subscription. And the importance of business customers arguably has grown in virtually every generation.
Aside from fixed wireless, we still are waiting to see which innovations 5G actually will produce at scale. But even in a “worst case” scenario, where no identifiable new use cases actually become dominant, 5G still “succeeds” if it allows mobile operators to continue increasing the capacity of their internet access networks.
“You get to keep your business” might not immediately sound like a huge benefit, but it is a far better outcome than “going out of business.” And that can happen when any internet service provider is unable to keep pace with the growing capacity requirements of the internet access business.
Recall all the dial-up ISPs that were not able to stay in business once the broadband era began. Think of the few pioneering “DSL” specialists that either went bankrupt or were absorbed by the legacy telcos. Think of the danger fixed wireless poses for some incumbent ISPs in terms of lost market share or account growth.
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