It will depend on the geography. A possible strategy for MNOs will be to overlay 5G NSA and monetize bandwidth advantages; also, MNOs and SIs will start offering 5G for industrial use cases. For consumers, 5G will be a trigger to buy new devices; those will not be able to use their 5G capabilities much, as we can see in US these days.
In terms of NEMs, tower owners and services companies, there will be increased revenues, more than previous n->n+1 transitions. OSS vendors will benefit, too.
In addition to Zoran reply, the impact will not be significant before Q3 2020 since 5G smartphones might be limited in the high-end models this year then mid-end models will follow. 5G smartphone penetration is expected to be 27% in 2021 and 51% in 2023.
On Verticals, with 5G SA will have much higher impact than 4G and will be realized in the medium to long term (more than 3 years) upon ecosystem is complete.
The answer to your question depends on a range of different parameters.
As Mohamed suggests, a lot will be down to device availability for the business (e.g.IIoT) and consumer segments, though most operators will / have started offering 5G home hubs and the like already. Not a mass market, but at least a stake in the ground.
I find Mohamed’s smartphone penetration figures too optimistic, considering that it has taken us more than 10 years to build 4G networks. But maybe they just show that there is a 5G chipset built into the device, and are not reflective of the actual use of 5G.
Geography is another parameter for sure. However, this is closely linked with spectrum allocation, the point in time of awarding 5G licenses, the local state of play in 4G and, last but not least, pressure from competitors. You have to look into the countries individually.
Spectrum allocation is absolutely crucial, as 5G network rollout in higher frequency bands is financially disadvantageous - despite the cost for delivering a Byte only being around 10% of that of previous technology generations. Some countries / operators have the ability to refarm lower-band, old spectrum e.g. from 3G, but full rollout will drag on for years, and will be initially limited to urban areas or similar traffic hotspots.
From an operator’s perspective this is a CapEx/OpEx optimisation game. It is important to show that they are in the market for 5G but in the end all investments are usually being made by judging the life-time-value that can be extracted from the deployed assets. So, in the short-to-medium term: don’t expect a massive impact on your financials from 5G.
However, what I find somewhat disturbing is that many operators still “think like an old telco”. 5G is a massive technology break that enables full virtualisation and thereby a raft of new business and monetisation models. From my experience, this rarely features in the considerations about how quickly these operators roll out 5G.
As for NEMs, I do not see a substantial positive impact at all. This industry has been in constant decline (and consolidation) for the past 15 years. We are down to 3 main NEM suppliers now.
For sure there will be more RAN units shipped as most of 5G will happen >2GHz. But the RAN will become “dumb” and drop in cost substantially. Business from HW will also disappear for the traditional NEMs and move to the COTS suppliers (HP, Dell etc.), plus additional competition from the SW manufacturers and SIs curtailing the revenues in the core/BSS/OSS parts. NEMs are truly in for a tough ride.
Huge 5G frequancyies and network investment will push MNO to RAN active sharing. This active sharing will also impact 4G, given that modern cabinet configuration support multi standard technology. As a consequence, the decelopment of 5G shared network will imply a decrease of 4G network opex and then a better ROI
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