Firms Doubtful of Network Readiness Despite Acknowledging 5G Prowess: Gartner

Betting big on the Internet of Things (IoT)-based communications and video analytics/streaming, nearly two-thirds of organisations globally plan to deploy the 5G technology by 2020 but are wary of the lack of readiness of communications service providers (CSPs) in making 5G networks ready by then, a Gartner survey said on Wednesday. The IoT communications remain the most popular target use case for 5G, with 59% of the organisations surveyed expecting 5G-capable networks to be widely used for the purpose. The next most popular use case is video, which was chosen by 53% of the respondents, said the “5G use case and adoption survey” by Gartner.

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“In terms of 5G adoption, end-user organisations have clear demands and expectations for 5G use cases,” said Sylvain Fabre, Senior Research Director at Gartner. “However, one major issue that 5G users face is the lack of readiness of communications service providers (CSPs). Their 5G networks are not available or capable enough for the needs of organisations,” he lamented.

To fully exploit 5G, a new network topology is required, including new network elements such as edge computing, core network slicing and radio network densification.

“In the short to medium term, organisations wanting to leverage 5G for use cases such as IoT communications, video, control and automation, fixed wireless access and high-performance edge analytics cannot fully rely on 5G public infrastructure for delivery,” explained Fabre.

Gartner predicted that by 2022, half of the CSPs that have completed commercial 5G deployments would fail to monetise their back-end technology infrastructure investments, due to systems not fully meeting 5G use case requirements.