The stars seem to be aligning for 2019 to be a pivotal year in the mobile industry as the rollout of 5G handsets begin to hit the market and consumers will more than likely get to experience the technology hands-on. But there is a lot of infrastructure deployments that still need to happen before wide-spread use of the technology becomes a reality.
Market research firm International Data Corp. (IDC) has issued its first global 5G network infrastructure market report, forecasting that the combined 5G and 5G-related network infrastructure market is expected to grow from about $528 million in 2018 to $26 billion in 2022. During this period, the 5G infrastructure market will manage a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 118%. The 5G radio access network (RAN) sub-segment is expected to be the largest market during the forecast period, IDC said.
"Early 5G adopters are laying the groundwork for long-term success by investing in 5G RAN, NFVI, optical underlays, and next-generation routers and switches,” said Patrick Filkins, senior research analyst for IoT and Mobile Network Infrastructure at IDC. “Many are also in the process of experimenting with the 5G NG core. The long-term benefit of making these investments now will be when the standards-compliant SA 5G core is combined with a fully virtualized, cloud-ready RAN in the early 2020s. This development will enable many communications SPs to expand their value proposition and offer customized services across a diverse set of enterprise verticals through the use of network slicing.”
The mobile industry is continuing to trial solutions that will leverage the 5G spectrum, network virtualization and machine learning and artificial intelligence in order to create new value propositions from existing network services. IDC said that 5G New Radio (NR) represents a key milestone in next-generation mobile for faster speeds and enhanced capability at lower cost per bit. However, IDC cautioned that 5G’s potential will take several years to arrive.
IDC said that service providers will need to invest in adjacent domains beyond just 5G NR and 5G NG core (the study phase for next-generation architecture), including backhaul and NFVI to support the continued push to cloud-native, software-led architectures.
In addition to 5G NR and 5G NG core, procurement patterns indicate communications service providers (SPs) will need to invest in adjacent domains, including backhaul and network functions virtualization infrastructure (NFVI), to support the continued push to cloud-native, software-led architectures.
More information about IDC’s 5G research, can be found in its new report: Worldwide 5G Network Infrastructure Forecast, 2018-2022.
