Consumers Increasingly Satisfied with 5G: GSMA

GSMA Intelligence expects trends in 5G growth and wide variations among the regions of the world will continue through the start of 6G in 2030, Emanuel Kolta, lead analyst-network sustainability and innovation, said Thursday. Kolta spoke during a Mobile World Live webinar. 5G isn’t new; the first commercial network launched in 2019, Kolta noted. “We have enough information to have some level of understanding about 5G and how the market, how users reacted to the launch,” he said. GMSA finds 75% of consumers say they’re happy with their 5G networks and satisfaction levels are growing, he said. In addition, it notes about a third are interested in fixed wireless access, which is a leading use case in many markets. The group also found that how 5G is deployed varies more by region than in earlier generations. He cited Southeast Asia as an example, where, more than in other regions, 5G connects “things” rather than just people. In countries with limited fiber penetration, including the U.S., the U.K. and South Africa, “FWA is a success story.” Regional differences will continue, he predicted. By GSMA’s latest count, 265 operators in 114 markets have launched 5G. By the end of the year, 5G connections are expected to reach 2 billion worldwide, “which is an enormous number,” and climb to 5.6 billion in 2030. After a period when the design and technology built into phones “kind of stalled,” consumers expect the next generations of phones to offer innovations, he said. “We also see some risks, such as the drop in smartphone sales in recent years” and the potential for geopolitical conflicts and other problems to cause supply chain issues. “We expect that consumer enthusiasm will continue,” he said: “We expect that North America will lead in terms of 5G penetration” with 90% penetration and 460 million connections by 2030. GSMA also sees data traffic continuing to grow at 30% annually. “There was some discussion around it slowing down, but bigger screens and better cameras continue to increase data traffic,” as does the growth of the IoT. GSMA believes 2G and 3G will still be used in five years, even though 5G has grown more quickly than any generation of wireless, he said. 4G networks will also continue to see broad use, though less than today.