It is a little early, some way ahead of the standardisation schedule, but the first (?) market-sizing forecast is in for Release-17 era ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC), pegged as the blue-riband version of 5G, geared towards more rarefied industrial change.
The crystal ball gazers over at California-based analyst house Mobile Experts put the URLLC market value at $23 billion by 2030, from a standing start in 2020/21, based on device shipments of around 16 million units. It reckons service revenue for mobile operators will spiral into “tens of billions” of dollars in the period.
The firm is selling a report on the back of its headline pronouncements, which it says delves into sundry URLLC-based industrial IoT verticals and applications, “from automotive and drones to manufacturing and industrial markets, as well as gaming and AR/VR”.
Mobile Experts highlighted the investments into private 5G networks by the likes of Volkswagen, Toyota, Siemens, and ABB. “It’s looking good [for URLLC],” it said, acknowledging as well it is jumping the gun, with 3GPP Release 17 not to be finalized until June next year (2021).
Joe Madden, chief analyst at the firm, commented: “That said, industry connections and long-term data allow [us] to confidently anticipate strong pre-investment in private 5G networks ahead of the standard’s completion. Companies… investing in private 5G networks expect to control robots using 5G URLLC in their factories despite the fact standards may force some changes.
“They’ll be deploying radios anyway, so we foresee a strong market picking up around 2023… Present investments are a long-term market bet, but as premium tariff opportunities arise, operators will investigate this market in the next five years and solid revenue opportunities will materialize in the long term.”
Madden continued: “As the market takes off from zero today, we expect things will be slow at first, but rapidly accelerate as Edge Computing matures and networks become more automated and easier to use.”
