North America tipped to lead 5G Charge

The latest Ericsson mobility report estimates that nearly five hundred and fifty million users will jump on the 5G bandwagon by 2022. Unsurprisingly, the North American region is expected to be at the forefront of this sea change. Per the forecasts, North America will account for nearly twenty five percent of the forecast while the Asia-Pacific region is expected to be second, contributing to ten percent of the forecast.

Early versions of 5G technology are already under trail across the North American region, which means we could see roll outs early next year. Companies like Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint have already announced trails of technology and spectrum bands in the US, all of which pertain to the 5G standard. Canadian telecom companies like TELUS and Bell Canada are also in on the action.
The report also indicates that the Middle East and Africa will shift from being GSM/EDGE only regions to nearly eighty percent of the population opting instead to remain connected via WCDMA/HSPA and LTE.

The worldwide mobile subscriber base is also expected to balloon up to six point eight billion, of which ninety five percent will be connected to 4G or 5G networks.

The report also takes note of the fact that India is currently home to nearly one thousand and fifty million subscribers, what makes this impressive is the fact that nearly fifteen million of these subscriptions were added in the third quarter of 2016 alone. This makes India the country which grew the most during the quarter.

Mobile broadband is also expected to lead subscriptions in 2022, accounting for nearly ninety percent of all subscriptions.
“Almost 90 percent of smartphone subscriptions are on 3G and 4G networks today and standardized 5G networks are expected to be available in 2020.” Added Ulf Ewaldsson, Chief Strategy and Technology Officer, Ericsson. “We are already seeing a great interest among operators in launching pre-standard 5G networks. 5G will accelerate the digital transformation in many industries, enabling new use cases in areas such as IoT, automation, transport and big data.” He said.