5G to make up 0.2% of connections by 2021: Cisco

Despite a projected 1,000-per-cent increase in 5G connections between 2020 and 2021, less than half a per cent of all devices and connections will have 5G capability in that same time period, according to a new Cisco Systems Inc. report. By 2021, global 5G connections will increase to 25 million from 2.3 million in 2020, when 5G technology is expected to be implemented, but will still only make up about 0.2 per cent of connections, said the report, released Tuesday. Despite this, 5G technologies will make up 1.5 per cent of total traffic by 2021. This is because, by that year, it is expected to generate 4.7 times more traffic than the average 4G connection, the report said. It added 5G is expected to drive “very high traffic volumes” because of high bandwidth and ultra low latency. Cisco’s annual report, the company’s 11th, looks at where the world is headed with respect to fixed and mobile Internet traffic, in this case between 2016 and 2021. It is also its first report to include projections of devices and connections with 5G capability, it said. “Broader and more extensive architectural transformations involving programmability and automation will…be needed to support the capabilities 5G enables, and to address not just today’s demands but also the extensive possibilities on the horizon,” Doug Webster, vice-president of service provider marketing at Cisco, said in an emailed statement. But he said with the proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT), live mobile video and augmented and virtual reality applications, 5G “will have significant relevance not just for mobility but rather for networking as a whole.” While 4G’s growth will come from “device proliferation and dynamic information access,” 5G is expected to be driven “largely” by IoT applications. The report said that “significant” 5G deployments aren’t expected until 2021 and beyond, adding that “gating factors” include regulatory standards approval, spectrum availability and auctioning and justifications for investment “associated with new infrastructure transitions and deployments.” The report projects about 53 per cent of all global devices and connections will be 4G capable by 2021. Cisco also expects provider plans will be “generous” with data caps, and speeds will be high enough so that offloading to Wi-Fi will be lower than 50 per cent by 2021. By that year, 4G offload traffic will be at 66 per cent, the report noted. The numbers follow a report by Ericsson AB, which projected that 550 million subscribers, or 10 per cent of the world’s population, will be on 5G networks by 2022. In 2016, the report found that Canadian mobile data traffic grew 41 per cent and will grow 2 times faster than fixed IP traffic from that year to 2021. In addition, more than three-fourths of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video by 2021, with a 9-fold increase between 2016 and 2021 — 78 per cent of total mobile data traffic by the latter year. Cisco projects Canadian mobile data traffic will grow five times in the five years between 2016 and 2021. In addition, 100 per cent of that traffic will be “smart” — categorized as having “advanced computing and multimedia capabilities” with at least 3G connectivity — traffic by 2021, with seven per cent of that mobile traffic accounting for all fixed and mobile data traffic by 2021, compared to four per cent in 2016. When it comes to Canadian traffic per mobile connection, whereas it averaged 1,872 MB per month in 2016, that figure will rise to 4,192 MB by 2021, at a compound annual growth rate of 17 per cent. Per user, that number will go up to 10,709 MB per month by 2021 versus 2,715 MG per month in 2016.

5G to make up 0.2% of connections by 2021: Cisco

Brief | February 8, 2017

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5G to make up 0.2% of connections by 2021: Cisco

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