Leading operators are accelerating their 5G timetables, justifying the investment due to the competitive advantage 5G technology provides

HAMPTON, N.H. — The efficiency gains offered by 5G are spurring operators to accelerate their deployment timeframes, according to TBR’s 3Q18 5G Telecom Market Landscape.

“5G is up to 10 times more efficient on a cost-per-gigabyte basis compared to LTE,” said TBR Telecom Senior Analyst Chris Antlitz. “This is the driving force behind most operator commitments to deploy the technology thus far. With data traffic continuing to scale globally, operators will need to invest in new technologies, such as 5G, that can help them more cost-effectively support that traffic while providing an overall better quality of experience for their customers.”

TBR estimates over 85% of 5G capex spend through 2020 will be driven by operators in four countries: the U.S., China, Japan and South Korea. Most Tier 1 operators in these countries have aggressive 5G rollout timetables and intend to leverage the technology for fixed wireless broadband and/or to support their mobile broadband densification initiatives. The seamless software upgradability of new RAN platforms to 5G will facilitate deployment at incremental cost, keeping overall spend scaling quickly but at a relatively low level compared to prior RAN generation upgrades.

TBR’s 5G Telecom Market Landscape tracks the 5G-related initiatives of leading operators and vendors worldwide. The report provides a comprehensive overview of the global 5G ecosystem and includes insights pertaining to market development, market sizing, use cases, adoption, regional trends, and operator and vendor positioning and strategies.