The mobile industry body says the technology will represent over half of all mobile connections.
The GSMA says 5G has been the fastest mobile generation rollout to date, surpassing one billion connections by the end of 2022, and rising to 1.6 billion by the end of 2023. By 2030 it expects to see 5.5 billion 5G connections.
It says that as of January, 261 mobile operators in 101 counties had launched commercial 5G services. Separately, 90 operators in 64 countries have committed to rolling out the technology.
The vast majority of these networks rely on 5G non-standalone technology, however, 47 networks now use 5G standalone. 5G standalone (also known as 5G SA) is a network configuration that operates independently of existing LTE networks, allowing for various improvements over non-standalone networks. The GSMA says there are a further 89 planned deployments of 5G SA in the “near term”.
The GSMA also claims cellular IoT connections are growing. It says the enterprise IoT segment now counts 10.7 billion connections, compared to 10.5 billion consumer connections. It expects enterprise connections to more than double to 38.5 billion by 2030.
“The early success of 5G was driven by enhanced mobile broadband (EMBB) and EMBB-related network traffic requirements. Yet, while consumer requirements will continue their trajectory, we’re now seeing use cases beyond that,” says Jarich, Head of GSMAi. “Opportunities are now appearing in areas including API monetisation and 5G RedCap for enterprise IoT – all supported by 5G-Advanced and 5G SA networks.
