New survey shows high levels of interest, intent to leverage 5G
A new survey shows that almost 100 percent of the organizations surveyed intend to leverage “5G” wireless technologies, with plans to evaluate and/or roll out 5G capabilities in the next 12 months — and 13% say they’ve already deployed 5G networks, despite the technology not yet being officially standardized.
The survey was commissioned by test and network visibility company Ixia and conducted by Dimensional Research, polling almost 300 senior executives from enterprises and services providers around the world that have more than 1,000 employees.
Asked about their 5G exploration and adoption plans, 96% of the organizations said that they plan to leverage 5G technologies and that 67% of them “have evaluated or will evaluate 5G technologies in the next 12 months” — of that 67%, 40% reported that they had already begun assessing 5G technologies. While 13% reported that they had already deployed 5G networks, another 31% said that they would be deploying a 5G network in the next 12 months. Overall, 34% said that they would be releasing a 5G offering publicly within 12 months.
That is a very rapid timeframe for 5G evaluation and adoption, even with the accelerated work on the Third Generation Partnership Project’s 5G standard timeline for Release 15. It’s unclear to what extent these might be standardized 5G networks. Some aspects of the 5G New Radio standard expected by the end of this year so that service providers and vendors can move forward — but some carriers, such as AT&T, have already begun talking up 5G in their marketing for LTE Advanced Pro features.
“Many industry analysts talk about 5G as if it is far in the future, but this study shows what we are seeing within Ixia, that 5G rollout and adoption is ramping much quicker than predictions,” said Kalyan Sundhar, VP for mobility and virtualization products at Ixia — which was recently acquired by Keysight Technologies. “We, as an industry, are proactively helping organizations make 5G a success even before all of the standards are finalized with 5G testing tools. Developers can ensure their networks and applications are ready to take advantage of the speed and increased device connectivity promised by 5G.”
Telecom, tech and financial services were the top three industries driving the need for 5G, and the top three drivers pushing the interest in 5G were identified as the desire for more flexible and scalable networks, cited by 59% of those surveyed; customer demand (55%) and market leadership (46%).
Unsurprisingly, the key barriers for 5G adoption identified by the survey included the current lack of standards, as well as organizational deficits in expertise and resources to adopt 5G.
