SAN JOSE, Calif.—It was originally expected that 2020 would be the year that 5G would debut, but according to Viavi Solutions Inc.’s report, “The State of 5G Deployment,” 5G will arrive a little bit ahead of schedule. The report, now in its third year, indicates that 55 commercial 5G networks will go live before 2020..
There were 13 commercial 5G networks that launched in 2018, both mobile and fixed wireless deployments. That number is expected to more than triple this year, as 42 new networks are eyeing a 2019 launch. Most of these deployments will take place in Europe (21), followed by the Middle East (14), Asia (10), the Americas (eight) and the Australiasia region (two).
Viavi pinpoints the competition to offer 5G services as a main reason for this escalation of pace for commercial deployments. At this time last year, the number of service providers that said they were in test trials for 5G architecture was 28.
All of these deployments are coming despite that 3GPP standards for 5G are not supposed to be finalized until 2020. This means that service providers need to be careful about finalizing architectures and that detailed technical information about deployment plans are currently limited.
Read Viavi’s entire report here.
