In what ways is 5G increasing expenditure for Telco operations? Looking for opinions.

THis is a bit vague question. Expenditures will increae because you have to deploy a whole new Radio access network along with a dedicated core network. In addition many functions will have to be virtualized. This requires your operations and organization to change. This change is heavy and coslty in term of transformation of processes with all HR related issues.

For sure expenditures will increae because companies will have to deploy a whole new setup and also countries like pakistan operators will buy license for 5G..

I think increasing expenditures is the focus. ROI will have far more impact than CAPEX. Most operators didn’t get 4G LTE rolled out comprehensively to maximize ROI so it doesn’t look promising they will do better with 5G.

The full implementation requires not only licensing costs, hardware changes/ enhancements for radio but also massive changes on the backend/ orchestration ensuring low latency etc. Basically it is a parallel network aside the existing 3/4G implementations with quite steep investments to meet the targets. Question is which use cases will be able to finance the initial ramp up as consumer needs appear to be met with existing 4G evolution.

Those contributors below are all correct. I would just add employee development…Engineering training, installation training, maintenance training, Network Operations Center (NOC), call center training, etc are areas to focus on.  Too many times the platforms are installed and then employees are left to learn on the job ...at the expense of the end user.

First of all, 5G concept should by nature integrate 3G/4G/WIFI existing technologies in OPCOs networks. Hence, Investing in 5G should not be considered as a standalone investment…
Moreover, OPCOs wishing to invest in 5G are advised to look first at 5G none standalone architecture (i.e 5G Radio heads integrated into 4G Core network) before stepping into a standalone architecture . So, a phased 5G Capex approach is advised.
  Incremental NW Capex in case of none standalone architecture will mainly depend on investments :
1-In high frequency bands licenses.
2-In 5G Radio heads and fiber backhauling…
However, 5G Capex investment optimization is possible and depends on the current NW topologies. Below some questions which would help the analysis:
1-Has your mobile operator already heavily invested in 4G microcells or not? ( as 5G is about increasing capacity density)
2-is 4G backhauling 100% fiber ? (as some operators still have a portion of their 4G backhauling NW addressed with MW whereas 5G backhauling will be purely fiber)
3- How are your mobile operators addressing IOT using their 4G NWs ( since 5G is expected to be the enabler of IOT services)
4-Can your mobile operator re-farm portions of high frequency bands ,currently used for 4G, to be used for 5G?
Finally, I would advise to look thoroughly at your OPCO NW Capex development and based on the above, identify the 5G Capex incremental versus what portion of 4G planned investment to be shifted to 5G.

JN Prince