Synopsis

The emerging 5G technology has attracted intense interest from the ICT industry and wider community due to its potential to increase opportunities for developments related to IoT including M2M communications, virtual reality, Artificial Intelligence and mission critical communication. It is also expected to enhance overall capacity, speed and latency of the mobile networks.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has research underway towards a global standard. While it is expected that the full standardization process won’t be completed until around early 2020 – we are beginning to see a clearer picture of what 5G entails and many countries are beginning to consider spectrum requirements and conduct trials and testing.

In 2018 there has become an obvious “race to market” competition around the world with operators and governments all wanting to be the first to capture the opportunities presented by the 5G evolution.

BuddeComm’s Senior Analysts have identified over 20 countries it sees as demonstrating progress towards 5G development, with representation from Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. In the emerging markets of Latin America, the South Pacific and Africa; there is still very little significant activity in the 5G area taking place at this stage.

This report explores and analyses the current progress of the 5G evolution including timelines for developments, spectrum candidates, key considerations for government and the potential uses and applications associated with 5G. In addition, the report provides initial industry forecasts as well as insights into countries demonstrating progress towards 5G.

Key development:

5G is an evolutionary process and countries which are well placed for 5G progress also have well established LTE networks. A number of countries have conducted 5G spectrum auctions and allocations.