5G acquisition: the next-gen network will cover 65% of the world's population by 2025

5G networks are predicted to transport 45% of global mobile traffic in 2025 – a 10% increase over what was expected in 2024 in June.

Separating the hype from reality in the first 5G mobile networks and smartphones
James Sanders and Karen Roby discuss the immediate future of 5G mobile networks and smartphones, and how existing equipment cannot be upgraded to 5G through software updates.

According to an Ericsson report on Monday, mobile subscriptions are increasing with the release of 5G. It is expected that there will be a total of 13 million 5G subscriptions by the end of 2019. And by 2025, 5G networks will support nearly half of the world’s mobile data traffic, with the potential to cover 65% of the world’s population by 2025, the report found.

The Ericsson Mobility Report investigated the effects that 5G will have on mobile data use and traffic. With its promise of higher speeds and more reliable mobile networks, 5G will have a major impact on smartphone users and users of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, the report shows.

SEE: 5G mobile networks: a guide for insiders (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

“If you look at all previous generations of mobile technology, they have changed people’s lives,” says Peter Linder, 5G evangelist and head of 5G marketing at Ericsson. “1G came, one example was that sellers suddenly had a phone in their car so they could request orders while they were traveling. 2G brought phones into people’s pockets and we could start sending text messages to each other.”

With 3G phones started working everywhere, not limited to a specific region. 4G brought the entire smartphone app economy. If we reach 5G, it is the first mobile generation designed for consumers, businesses and municipalities. “It’s going to connect a big part of the economy in the future,” Linder said.

The current mobile economy is already booming: Q3 2019 organized a total of 8 billion mobile subscriptions, with 61 million subscriptions added during the quarter. Leading in mobile subscriptions was China, which added 14 million in Q3, the report found.

4G (LTE) increased by 190 million during the quarter and now accounts for 52% of all mobile subscriptions. Mobile broadband subscriptions also experienced a significant increase to 6.2 billion.

Looking at mobile subscriptions, “for example, what we measure is whether you and I have two phones with two different SIM cards, that counts as two subscriptions,” Linder said. “We have the symptoms of people using more than one smartphone every day, and nowadays they usually have these as two devices instead of two SIMs in one device.”

As we connect more IoT devices and cars to this network, the number of subscriptions continues to increase, Linder adds. And with 2020 on the horizon, 5G subscriptions will gain ground, according to the report.

Outlook 5G mobile subscriptions

With more service providers on their way to 5G and more 5G devices becoming available, 5G subscriptions have started to grow and will explode over the next five years, the report said.

A 5G subscription update is expected to be faster than LTE, the most important factor being China’s earlier involvement in 5G compared to LTE. A total of 13 million 5G subscriptions are expected by the end of 2019, most of these subscriptions are from China, the report found.

The report also predicted that by 2025 there will be 2.6 billion 5G subscriptions worldwide, accounting for nearly 30% of all mobile subscriptions. Despite the increase in 5G subscriptions, according to the report, LTE also remains a prominent mobile access technology through subscriptions.

“4G has been the technology with universal nationwide coverage for quite some time,” Linder said. “All previous generations – when we went from 2G to 3G, and 3G to 4G – we took the same towers, we placed (the new) G in each tower and we switched on the network. We had more or less the same 4G coverage since we Had 3G coverage.

“When we switch to 5G, we put it in pockets and where it is really needed, especially when we talk about the most powerful versions of 5G,” Linder continued. “You don’t get 5G universal coverage as fast as we did with previous generations. Because for 5G we don’t just focus on illuminating 5G in the towers that we have. We have an equal focus, in the US, of it adding three or four times as many small cells as we have cell towers. ”

An example of this concept is transport. “In the beginning (of transport) we had buses and cars almost everywhere. We had buses and cars in the countryside, we had buses and cars in the city, but when the traffic became too heavy in the cities, we created subways,” said Linder. “That doesn’t mean we build metros all over the country, and 5G is more; let’s go inside and create really strong capacity increases, but inside the pockets.”

Growth in mobile traffic

However, with more subscriptions comes more mobile traffic, the report showed.

Between Q3 2018 and Q3 2019, mobile data traffic grew by 68%. By 2025, according to the report, mobile traffic is expected to grow by 27% annually, with video accounting for nearly 76% of mobile data per month.

“The increase in usage is the shift in the transition from text and image-oriented things to visually-oriented things,” Linder said. “If I find an article or manual online and I read the manual, those data bits do not consume a lot of traffic. But if my daughter uses YouTube and she streams video to her phone, then that simply consumes considerably more bandwidth. Just as visual rises, so does traffic. ”

The report predicts that by 2025 45% of the total mobile data traffic will be supported by 5G networks. Contributions to more than 50% of mobile IoT connections are narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) and Cat-M1 networks, the report found.

“When 4G was introduced, four networks were launched in the first year. When 5G was introduced, 30 networks were launched in the first six months,” Linder said.

The report showed that the road to 5G is explosive in itself, but the next five years will offer even more growth.

For more information, see What is 5G? The business guide for the next generation of wireless technology on ZDNet.

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