Billed income expected to hit $357 billion (€304.6 billion) by then as Juniper Research finds that 5G “highly resilient” to the pandemic.
A new study from Juniper Research has found that operators’ billed revenue from 5G connections will reach $5 billion in 2020, in its first full year of commercial service.
By 2025, 5G revenue is anticipated to represent 44% of global operator billed revenue owing to rapid migration of 4G mobile subscribers to 5G networks and new business use cases enabled by 5G technology.
Mitigating disruption
It found that supply chain disruptions caused by the initial periods of the pandemic have been mitigated through modified physical roll-out procedures to maintain the momentum of hardware deployments. 5G connections generate 250% more revenue.
The study found that 5G uptake surpassed initial expectations and predicts total 5G connections will surpass 1.5 billion by 2025. It also forecast that the average 5G connection will generate 250% more revenue than an average cellular connection by 2025.
To secure a return on investment into new services, such as uRLLC (Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication) and network slicing, enabled by 5G, operators must apply premium pricing for 5G connections, according to the study.
It notes that these services alongside the high-bandwidth capabilities of 5G will create data-intensive use cases that lead to a 270% growth in data traffic generated by all cellular connections over the next five years.
More virtualization
Juniper insists operators must use launches of standalone 5G network to increase virtualisation in core networks, as failure to develop 5G network architectures that handle the rise in traffic will result in reduced network functionality.
This in turn would lead to a diminished value proposition of its 5G network among end users. The author of the research, Sam Barker warned,
“Operators will compete on 5G capabilities, in terms of bandwidth and latency. A lesser 5G offering will lead to user churn to competing networks and missed opportunities in operators’ fastest-growing revenue stream.”