Ericsson has released a new Ericsson Mobility Report forecasting the trends in telecom sector across the world. According to the report, there are two major trends that the networking giant can foresee. The first, obvious trend is the rise of 5G networks and consumers subscribing to the network. The second one being rise in mobile broadband to 6.1 bn unique subscribers by 2022.
The report points out that approximately half billion users will be connected to 5G networks by 2022 with almost quarter of all the mobile subscriptions opting for 5G connectivity.
Ericsson 5G 4G Internet Connectivity, Mobile
Nearly 25 percent of all the 5G subscriptions in 2022 will come from North America, with the exact figure reaching 550 million. Asia Pacific will closely follow North America regarding the fastest growth of 5G subscribers with about 10 percent of the share. The Middle East and Africa will shift from predominantly GSM/EDGE only to approximately 80 percent of users being connected to WCDMA/HSPA and LTE. The report further points out that the mobile subscriber base is estimated to scale 6.8 billion with over 95 percent people being connected to 4G or 5G networks.
Ulf Ewaldsson, chief strategy and technology officer, Ericsson added, “Almost 90 percent of smartphone subscriptions are on 3G and 4G networks today and standardised 5G networks are expected to be available in 2020.” He further added that 5G would help Automation, IoT and big data.
The second major point discussed in the report was the rise of mobile broadband with approximately 6.1 billion unique subscribers by 2022. To set the context, the world added 84 million new mobile subscriptions during the third quarter of 2016 with India leading regarding net additions with 15 million, with China closely following with 14 million new mobile subscribers.
Ericsson 5G 4G Internet Connectivity, Mobile Mobile Streaming
Ericsson also points out that the mobile video traffic will grow 50 percent every year through 2022, accounting for about 75 percent of all the mobile data traffic. Social Media traffic will be the second type of traffic that will dominate the mobile traffic growing 39 percent each year.
Currently, consumers are focusing on the live streaming aspect along with social networks to interact with friends, family and customers. Two in every five smartphone users are interested in live streaming apps in India and other high-growth countries like Brazil, Indonesia and Oman with the figure dropping to one in every five smartphone users in the United States of America.
Along with 5G and Mobile Broadband, IoT will also see significant growth, with approximately 29 billion devices connected to the internet, out of which 18 billion of the devices relating to IoT.