Research house Gartner highlighted that end-user organisations are willing to pay more for 5G capabilities to drive Internet or Things (IoT) communications.
Gartner's survey, ‘User Confusion About 5G Demands CSP Action', found that 75% of survey respondents are in favour of advancing with 5G, whereas 24% are unwilling to pay more for 5G than for 4G.
Sylvain Fabre, research director at Gartner, said: "Those in the telecom industry are more likely to be prepared to pay more than those in other industries. End-user organisations in the manufacturing, services and government sectors, for example, are less likely to be willing to pay a premium for 5G than telecom companies, which are willing to pay a 5G premium for their internal use."
The survey also found that only 8% expect 5G to deliver cost savings or increase revenues. Plus, 59% see 5G as a network evolution and 27% see it as an enabler of digital business. However over half of the respondents say that the main intention to use 5G is to drive IoT communication.
"This finding is surprising, as the number of deployed 'things' that need cellular connectivity won't exceed the capacity of existing cellular IoT technologies before 2023 in most regions," added Fabre. "And even once fully implemented, 5G will suit only a narrow subset of IoT use cases that require a combination of very high data rates and very low latency. In addition, 5G won't be ready to support massive machine-type communications, or ultra-reliable and low-latency communications, until early 2020."
Gartner advises that communication service providers need realistic roadmaps for 5G coverage and typical performance, as well as publish clear 5G rollout plans for years 2019 to 2021 to help organisations understand when and where 5G will be available for IoT applications.
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