Global Benchmarks

The 5G opportunity

5G will transform economies and societies. Across the globe momentum towards 5G is building as standards work accelerates and test and trialling activity ramps up. Governments, operators and vendors are striving to lead on 5G in order to achieve a competitive advantage and secure maximum benefits. Some countries are more advanced and have committed more resources to their 5G strategies than others. India has much to gain from rising to the 5G challenge and a tremendous opportunity to accelerate its own ambitions. It can learn from the experiences of early leaders to establish a 5G roadmap that can help drive the Digital India strategy1 and enable the country to distinguish itself as a challenger in shaping 5G technologies.

5G will mark an inflection point in the future of communications, bringing instant high-powered connectivity to billions of devices, enabling a nearly endless array of services across the economy, and providing a powerful tool to address some of society’s most pressing challenges. The approach of that inflection point appears to be accelerating. Whereas Mobile World Congress 2017 focused on the potential of 5G, this year’s event was all about 5G implementation. The acceleration of standards work in the 3GPP towards the end of 2017 helped set the stage, but what really stood out was the number and variety of 5G tests and trials underway, as well as multiple operator and vendor announcements regarding product launches and commercial service roll-out plans.

The mobile broadband market

In 2019 4G LTE will be the leading mobile technology worldwide with over three billion connections. Meanwhile global data traffic continues to grow exponentially with Ericsson’s latest mobility report update (February 2018) indicating a 55% increase in the year from Q4 2016.

By 2025 5G will be a significant part of the connectivity mix with the GSMA forecasting that it will account for 49% of total connections in the U.S. (excluding cellular IoT), 45% in Japan and 25% in China. Together China, the U.S. and Japan will host more than 70% of the world’s forecasted 1.2 billion 5G mobile connections. The figure above summarises the current state of the mobile broadband market in the 5G leader countries, together with 2025 forecasts on 5G coverage and connections

Courtesy: Bharat Exhibitions