Europe’s mobile industry feels caught in something like a slow-motion squeeze, with every new data point from the GSMA’s Spectrum Pricing and Renewals in Europe study underlining how much of the continent’s 5G underperformance isn’t technical at all, but structural. The report reads almost like a diagnosis: operators are spending heavily—€200 billion since 2019—yet still struggling to justify further upgrades because spectrum, the core resource they rely on, has quietly become disproportionately expensive. Spectrum now consumes around 8% of recurring operator revenue, triple what it was a decade ago, even though the commercial value of each MHz has fallen by more than half as data prices collapsed by 94% over the same period. That mismatch between declining value and sticky pricing is at the heart of the tension.
You can see the consequences ripple across the charts in the report. Europe’s 5G coverage looks good on paper—93% by population—but dig into the operator-level view and the cracks widen. A fifth of operators still cover less than 70% of their markets, and only about 2% of Europeans actually use 5G Standalone (5G SA), compared with 77% in China and roughly a quarter in the U.S. The GSMA’s breakdown of median speeds, consistency, and real-world availability across regions shows Europe reliably in the middle of the pack, trailing Asia Pacific, the Gulf states, and North America. The continent that once defined mobile leadership has ceded the frontier simply because the financial conditions for deploying the full 5G capability—SA cores, slicing, enterprise-grade latency—aren’t in place.
The report’s framing of a vicious cycle feels uncomfortably precise. Lower ARPU, squeezed EBITDA margins, and falling returns on capital mean operators hesitate to invest at the very moment Europe needs densification and SA upgrades most urgently. Layer on top the cost of renewals—more than 500 licences expiring in the next decade—and the picture sharpens: under today’s pricing rules, operators face around €105 billion in spectrum costs by 2035. But this is also where the study reveals its most hopeful insight. With smarter renewal policy—automatic, low-cost administrative extensions rather than revenue-maximising auctions—Europe could cut roughly €30 billion from that burden. And that number matters, because it’s more than enough to fund the upgrade of all existing 5G networks to 5G SA. GSMA models suggest that doing so could lift network speeds by up to 23% and generate as much as €75 billion in additional GDP by 2035.
The puzzle is that Europe’s spectrum policy still tends to see spectrum as a fiscal asset rather than a productivity engine. High reserve prices, fragmented rules, set-asides, short licence durations—they all nudge auctions toward maximising short-term treasury revenue instead of long-term infrastructure quality. The GSMA’s position is refreshingly direct: Europe doesn’t need more auctions for bands already competitively assigned; it needs administrative renewals, indefinite durations, market-based trading, and pricing that reflects the radically changed economics of mobile data. In other words, treating spectrum the way aviation treats airspace or energy markets treat grid access—essential infrastructure, not a windfall opportunity.
As the Digital Networks Act moves forward, Europe has a rare moment to correct course. The continent is not behind because of a lack of engineering talent or industrial ambition; it’s behind because the policy framework throttles investment capacity at the exact moment global competitors are accelerating. With €30 billion in potential savings, a fully deployable 5G SA layer, and a €75 billion economic boost all sitting on the table, spectrum reform isn’t just a technical matter—it’s the fastest route to restoring Europe’s digital competitiveness.
