The Versatile and Dynamic World of 5G

It is expected that by 2021 the global spending on 5G mobile infrastructure is forecast to reach USD$2.3billion. These investments are driven by 5G use cases targeting consumers but foremost by industries, transport, health care and utilities. To understand how the emergence of new and innovative use cases will change existing infrastructure requirements, operators must invest in new network domains, radio access network (RAN) infrastructure, transmission, core networks, cloud infrastructure, management systems and IoT platforms.

5G use cases also provide new opportunities for new and innovative technologies and companies to join the 5G ecosystem. A number of industrial initiatives are in place to allow new players to enter the 5G ecosystem. While most still think of 5G through a consumer lens and what 5G means for consumers' mobile connection, new transformative opportunities are emerging. 5G is the first mobile generation built specifically for machine communication, be it in manufacturing, transport, agriculture, health care, utilities or smart cities and which is the fundamental basis for new opportunities to arise. As the 5G era draws near, the focus is no longer just on faster download speeds and more bandwidth; it is even more about the new technological capabilities; such as low latency, software defined networking, virtualization of functions, and edge computing - enabling transformation and the new perspective we should adopt when thinking about future communication.

This is how 5G will become the next catalyst for digital transformation of industries, transport, utilities, public services and critical infrastructures.