Special Report: New 5G roll-outs
As more and more operators start to report 5G as a separate item in their revenue and capex statements, it is easy to think of this being a mature market, in which nearly all operators now have major deployments.
But of course, it is only in its earliest stages. While 79 countries now have some 5G services, only a dozen have more than 50% population coverage. While about half of the world’s mobile operators have embarked on 5G, a far smaller percentage have a large-scale network, and only 22 in total, according to GSMA, have already implemented 5G Standalone with the 5G core at scale. This is good news for vendors, which have plenty of new contracts to target – especially hopeful for those that did less well than hoped in phase one, such as Nokia, or those that need some time to mature their offerings, such as the Open RAN challengers.
Some operators are moving cautiously because they have plenty of 4G still to monetize, or their regulators have not yet allocated 5G spectrum, or they do not see demand yet for 5G. But others are just starting large-scale deployments in 2022, bringing new business for vendors and, often, new business and architectural ideas as they learn from the early movers. The Indian spectrum auction, just concluded (see below) will unleash investment in 5G in a very competitive and interesting market, and in particular, it will be fascinating to see which architectures Reliance Jio adopts, and how far it continues to behave like a new challenger, even in its second major build-out, after six years as a 4G operator.
There are even newer operators launching 5G in other major markets, providing the suppliers with the rare boost of brand new customers to target – Dish in the USA, and China Broadnet, are both rolling out quickly, as we analyze today. But, like Rakuten Mobile in Japan, these start-ups will have their share of commercial and financial challenges before they find their feet and before we can assess their impact on the large markets they are in.
In the meantime, new 5G deployments, whether by new or established operators, are driving revenues into the market and helping the platforms and business models to mature and gain scale.
But the real turning point, in terms of proving the wider impact of 5G on the telecoms, media and Internet worlds, will come with mainstream adoption of 5G SA, which we may wait 2-3 more years to see.