No mobile technology has spread as quickly as 5G. While the fifth generation of mobile communications has so far grown primarily in North America and China, future growth will also come from Europe.
In the next five years, Western Europe will become the second most important region in the world for the fifth generation of mobile communications (5G). This emerges from the current Ericsson Mobility Report, which was published in Stockholm on Tuesday.
At the end of 2021, however, only six percent of mobile phone contracts in Western Europe were 5G-capable. This put the region well behind North America (20 percent), Northeast Asia (19 percent) and the Gulf Cooperation Council region (9 percent). By 2027, however, the field will be rearranged: Ericsson predicts that Western Europe will then be in second place worldwide with a 5G quota of 82 percent, just behind North America (90 percent).
Economy hopes for 5G
The fifth generation of mobile communications (5G) offers significantly higher data transmission rates than the previous UMTS (3G) and LTE (4G) standards. In addition, the delay times (latency) are lower, so that 5G can also be used for real-time applications such as controlling a machine remotely or telemedicine applications. Private users benefit from the short data runtimes when gaming, for example.
The Ericsson Mobility Report shows that around a quarter of the world’s population currently has access to a 5G network. This value will triple in the next five years. And more and more people actually use this network coverage. 5G technology will account for almost half of all contracts by 2027, exceeding 4.4 billion in value.
Data traffic in Western Europe still mostly with 4G
With the more widespread use of 5G, users are also using mobile networks more intensively. Global data traffic in mobile networks has doubled in the past two years. “This growth was driven by the increasing use of smartphones and mobile communications, as well as the digitization of society and industry.”
In Western Europe, a large part of the data traffic is currently still handled in the LTE networks (4G). “4G is widespread and has the highest market penetration of all regions,” says the Ericsson report. Due to an ongoing switch from 2G and 3G to LTE, the number of 4G-compatible contracts increased by another 7 percent, and they accounted for around 80 percent of all mobile subscriptions at the end of 2021.
Growth in 5G subscriptions in Western Europe also proved strong. Here, the figure rose from 5 million contracts in 2020 to 31 million at the end of 2021. “4G is expected to decline from 2023 in favor of a significantly higher penetration of 5G subscriptions.” The number of 5G subscriptions will reach almost 150 million by the end of 2023. Many service providers would be phasing out their 3G (UMTS) networks in the coming years to allow spectrum reuse for 4G and 5G.
Source: Stern
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
