5G in South Africa

by AKANI CHAUKE
JOHANNESBURG – THE adoption of fifth generation (5G) of cellular mobile  communications is intensifying, with 66 percent of organisations having plans to deploy the technology by 2020.

Organisations expect 5G networks to be mainly used for Internet of Things (IoT) communications and video, with operational efficiency the key driver.

Gartner, the research and advisory company which conducted the use case and adoption survey, said in terms of 5G adoption, end-user organisations had clear demands and expectations for 5G use cases.

However, a major issue that 5G users faces was the lack of readiness of communications service providers (CSPs).

“Their 5G networks are not available or capable enough for the needs of organisations,” said Sylvain Fabre, senior research director at Gartner.

To fully exploit 5G, a new network topology is required, including new network elements such as edge computing, core network slicing and radio network densification, the expert said.

Fabre said in the short to medium term, organisations wanting to leverage 5G for use cases such as IoT communications, video, control and automation, fixed wireless access and high-performance edge analytics could not fully rely on 5G public infrastructure for delivery.

IoT communications remains the most popular target use case for 5G, with 59 percent of the organisations surveyed expecting 5G-capable networks to be widely used for this purpose.

The next most popular use case is video, which was chosen by 53 percent of the respondents.

The Gartner 5G use case and adoption survey was conducted in May 2018 through June 2018.

In total, 185 respondents participated.

– CAJ News