Report: 5G subscriptions estimated to reach 1.9bn in 2024

The latest edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report has estimated that global 5G subscriptions will reach 1.9 billion in 2024.

This, would represent a 400 million increase more than earlier predicted.

Börje Ekholm, the president and chief executive officer of Ericsson, who presented the report at this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Shanghai, China, said Ericsson’s innovation would continue to unlock 5G potential for service providers and industry players in Asian countries and other regions, where it has its operations.

Ekholm, said this faster-than-expected growth was important for economies across the globe, especially China, where 5G serves as the backbone for a new digital paradigm.
At the GTI Summit, held in connection with MWC Shanghai 2019, Ekholm, had illustrated how Ericsson was using its insights from early 5G deployments to help industries capture the technology’s vast potential.

“Connectivity will be critical to digitalising the economy, and we see 5G as the necessary backbone of this development. This is a fundamental shift for mobility – from empowering consumers to empowering industries,” Ekholm said.

This was already happening in many parts of the world, including China. For example, Ericsson is cooperating there with China Mobile’s Jiangsu branch and RoboTechnik.

As part of an Industry 4.0 project, Ericsson had deployed a “hybrid network” solution in a RoboTechnik factory that combined 4G and 5G, private and commercial networks, as well as a central and edge cloud to meet requirements of safety production and management.

5G, together with Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cloud and Edge computing, represented one the most powerful technology platforms ever created.

The potential of these technologies builds on a synergy of key components, each powerful in its own rite, but combined will enable a fundamental shift, Ericsson President and CEO said.
“We are standing at a historical moment. The possibilities of the 4th Industrial Revolution are limited only by our imagination, as we work to tackle everything from climate issues to the role of technology in our societies,” Ekholm explained.

According to him, “Automation is also critical. We are developing and deploying AI-based managed services solutions to improve network quality and consumer experiences and have already successfully integrated the first online deployment for AI-based cell issue classification to improve network performance.”

Ericsson recently announced a partnership with KDDI in Japan to implement an AI-based solution that automatically finds optimal radio network parameters in the network. This resulted in increased spectrum efficiency between bands and improved throughput.

In a series of trials conducted in dense urban areas, the company improved network throughout for KDDI by nearly 10 percent.

Ericsson has a long history in China, delivering solutions there since 1894, and the company has since then, contributed to every generation of technology in the Chinese telecommunications industry.