5G roaming is set for explosive growth in the next five years, which will lead to the development of new roaming tools that will allow for the autonomous identification of connections as 5G proliferates, according to new data from Juniper Research.
The data forecasts that 5G roaming connections will reach 526 million by 2027, up from just 53 million connections this year. This will include artificial intelligence (AI)-based real-time analytics and roaming fraud mitigation services to protect against an influx of data traffic from roaming subscribers. These two areas will be the highest areas of growth for 5G roaming, Juniper said.
Current roaming analytics services are going to be insufficient in monitoring 5G roaming connections and the increase in mobile roaming data. Because of this, operators should invest in 5G next-generation cores (NGC), Juniper said.
Investing in cores
NGCs are virtualized and more efficiently assess traffic and connectivity. Deploying these NGCs can better protect networks’ processing power and signaling capabilities to increase levels of roaming data consumption, Juniper said.
This will help vendors to ensure a continuous level of service for enterprise customers.
Juniper added that NGCs will be imperative to handling the growth of data from roaming subscribers that is forecasted to grow 3,500% over the next four years.
“An inability to detect roaming connections that use valuable network bandwidth risks diminishing the user experience for the operator’s own subscribers,” said Elisha Sudlow-Poole, researcher at Juniper. “To maintain high-quality services for their subscribers, operators must invest in roaming solutions that can efficiently identify roaming connections that consume large amounts of cellular data.”
