Molex have released the results of a global survey of decision makers from telecom carriers exploring the state of 5G and the transformational opportunities it presents, along with its impact on deployment progress, current delivery challenges and emerging business prospects. Overall, carriers are optimistic: more than half of those surveyed expect to deliver substantial end-user benefits within two to five years while 47% reported that users already are seeing value or will within one year.
"The 5G market is nearing an inflection point as carriers report steady progress despite continued challenges,” said Aldo Lopez, president of Datacom solutions at Molex. "Fully realizing 5G’s potential will transform multiple industries and markets. It is a long game that requires collaboration across an entire ecosystem of hardware, software and connectivity companies to innovate to these new mobile network standards, which in turn, will accelerate user adoption."
Molex commissioned Dimensional Research to conduct the State of 5G Survey in February 2021, polling more than 200 qualified participants in engineering, product and R&D roles at network operators or Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs). A variety of 5G questions were asked, with emphasis on timing and use cases. More than half of those surveyed reported 5G deployment delays caused by the impact of COVID-19 while more than a third reported future roadmaps delays.
The survey found that 92% expect to achieve 5G business goals within five years; larger carriers reported a focus on generating new revenue streams while supporting existing business to reduce operational costs and accommodate increasing demand (65%). It also found that consumer devices leveraging 5G technology will be first to generate significant new revenue (43%), followed by industrial and IIoT (35%) and fixed wireless access (33%).
All survey respondents reported issues with 5G deployment with the top-three challenges being spectrum issues (41%), lack of consumer use cases (31%) and regulations (30%).
When asked to identify the most important technology or industry changes that will enable network operators to achieve their business goals, respondents cited reduced costs of 5G infrastructure and network equipment (41%); innovation in enabling technologies, including semiconductors and sensors (31%); availability of new types of devices that require connectivity (26%); as well as stable and consistent government regulations (22%).
Rural home access topped the list of primary use cases for fixed wireless access at 53%, followed by city and suburban home access at 45% and remote industrial infrastructure access at 41%.
Still, only 25% of those polled believe that 5G is delivering substantial benefits to consumers today, but 99% anticipate substantial benefits within five years.
Small cell (48%), mmWave (46%) and private networks (46%) were identified as the top three technologies/topologies to play critical roles in enabling 5G advantages. While no consensus was reached on which technology would be first to impact users, mmWave emerged as the long-term leader, garnering 47% of the votes, followed by sub-6 (27%) and wide-area low power (26%).
