STL Partners has a new 5G status tool that assesses the 5G market based on supply and demand drivers, with 2020 essentially acting as a baseline. As you can see, we are just at the beginning of the 5G era. That is worth keeping in mind the next time you hear somebody complain that 5G is not needed, does not work, is not yet deployed or provides little value.
Think about 5G as the first mobile platform that is virtualized, cloud-based and, from an application perspective, relatively open. Keep in mind that most observers believe 5G will thrive based on new enterprise use cases, not consumer value, so much. Even when the infrastructure is substantially deployed, it will take time for enterprise use cases to be pioneered and adopted.
As many predicted 3G use cases did not develop until 4G, we might well expect some hoped-for 5G use cases to flourish only when 6G arrives. In the near term, 5G often will be an efficient means of increasing capacity at network hotspots. It will, in many cases, also provide the platform for mobile operator entry into the fixed network internet access business.
Give it a few years, in other words.
