There is currently a lot of soul-searching about
#5G and "what went wrong?"
Various observers have noted that expectations have not been met, new 5G-specific applications have not emerged commercially, revenues have not grown (except
#FWA), MNOs are scaling back CAPEX, numerous telcos and vendors are shedding jobs and exiting parts of their businesses.
If you've followed me for a while, you'll know I’m not surprised. I've been calling out 5G hype for several years. I've been particularly vocal about a few things:
- 5G comes in phases. Most of the promises suggested Phase 3 (essentially Release 18+) with all the cool features would be available straight away, when reality was that Phase 1 (non-standalone) was coming first, offering little extra compared to decent 4G. There was no "expectation management" by the industry about the predictable 5+ year gap.
- Coverage has been patchy, especially in rural areas and indoors. That means it has not been worth app or device developers creating new 5G-optimised products or services, given they would likely spend most of their time using 4G,
#WiFi or just "thin" non-standalone 5G unable to deliver ultra-low latency or similar promised capabilities.
- Enterprises haven't widely adopted 5G for many of the promised use-cases like smart factories, connected vehicles and so on. That's partly down to the previous two reasons, plus a lack of proof points and integration ecosystems. Further, where they *do* use 5G, there is a preference for
#privatewireless or dedicated infrastructure, rather than using MNOs' national networks and the much-hyped slicing concepts.
-
#Spectrum has either been slow to be made available, or in the wrong bands for mainstream usage (eg mmWave)
- 5G cloud-native core needed a *lot* of heavy lifting
- Mundane but important issues around backhaul / fronthaul, local authority planning permits for macro or small cells and so on
A key question is whether all this slows down
#6G development work and investment, or if it *steers* it. My sense is that it will nudge R&D efforts towards fixing some of the problems such as rural & indoor coverage, and power consumption. And it may nudge it away from classical MNO models towards private networks, infra-sharing players, satellite and others.
It will also be reflected in work on 6G AI uses, disaggregation, energy efficiency and maybe sensing, while some telco-hyped aspects such as the core/slicing and edge-computing will be downplayed or redefined in a future extended-RIC type model.
This is the short presentation I gave at last week's 5G Forum run in South Africa by regulator
ICASA - but it is applicable more widely. I covered some key factors that have proven challenging for 5G deployment and uptake, but didn't have time to go into details about cloud-native core upgrades, physical weight/size of equipment and so on.
If you want a keynote for your event, about 5G problems, fixes, real opportunities and lessons for 6G, please let me know.