The chair of Giga Europe has told a London audience that network providers are preparing for even greater demands on their infrastructure.
Speaking at a CTAM Europe event Reinald Krüger, who is also the Vodafone Group Director of Policy & Public Affairs, said the so-called “busy hour” of a fixed network doubles every three years. He said that while the streamers already had high quality requirements, the emerging metaverse was demanding more. “An average metaverse user might have a data requirement 40 times the size of an average viewer.”
Krüger said there were constant discussions between networks and content providers, who were creating their own framework, while the European Commission had also launched a series of consultations in the area.
“Every player needs to play a role and it’s a question for society because you want to be inclusive and not leave anyone behind… there is a lot of collaboration happening and providers are used to that. The metaverse is such an example but also we want to be greener.”
The executive wouldn’t be drawn on the implications of the BBC opting for an online only model from the 2030s.
He said that the direction of travel for the sector was to concentrate on the delivery of services, rather than be a creator of content. “We can’t say that content is going out of the sector, but that it’s now more about content aggregation”.