LISLE, IL – According to a recent Molex survey of telecom carriers, 99% say end users will benefit from 5G within five years.

More than half of those surveyed expect to deliver substantial end-user benefits within two to five years, while 47% reported users already are seeing value or will within one year.

“The 5G market is nearing an inflection point as carriers report steady progress despite continued challenges,” said Aldo Lopez, president, Datacom Solutions, Molex. “Fully realizing 5G’s potential will transform multiple industries and markets. It is a long game that requires collaboration across an entire ecosystem of hardware, software and connectivity companies to innovate to these new mobile network standards, which in turn, will accelerate user adoption.”

Some 92% expect to achieve 5G business goals within five years. Larger carriers reported a focus on generating new revenue streams, while supporting existing business to reduce operational costs and accommodate increasing demand (65%).

Consumer devices leveraging 5G technology will be first to generate significant new revenue (43%), followed by industrial and IIoT (35%) and fixed wireless access (33%).

All respondents reported issues with 5G deployment. The top-three challenges are spectrum issues (41%), lack of consumer use cases (31%) and regulations (30%).

When asked to identify the most important technology or industry changes that will enable network operators to achieve their business goals, respondents cited reduced costs of 5G infrastructure and network equipment (41%); innovation in enabling technologies, including semiconductors and sensors (31%); availability of new types of devices that require connectivity (26%); and stable and consistent government regulations (22%).

Three in five survey participants reported the need for a “killer app” or transformative use case to drive 5G adoption and significant new business revenues. Augmented reality, gaming and smart home applications topped the list of primary consumer devices, while robotics, logistics and factories were the leading 5G-enabled use cases for industrial and IIoT.

Rural home access topped the list of primary use cases for fixed wireless access at 53%, followed by city and suburban home access (45%) and remote industrial infrastructure access (41%). Additionally, autonomous driving, vehicle-to-everything communications and vehicle telematics ranked highest on the list of primary use cases for the automotive industry. Remote patient monitoring, medical wearables and remote surgery were identified as “killer apps” for the medical market.

Only 25% of those polled believe 5G is delivering substantial benefits to consumers today. More than half said consumers in Japan and Korea already recognize substantial benefit from 5G. China also continues to gain traction, with more than half of survey respondents indicating consumers benefit currently (24%) or are expected to benefit within one year (27%). According to the survey, expectations for the US are that it will take two-to-five years (75%) for consumers to fully realize significant advantages nationwide.

Small cell (48%), mmWave (46%) and private networks (46%) were identified as the top three technologies/topologies to play critical roles in enabling 5G advantages. While no consensus was reached on which technology would be first to impact users, mmWave emerged as the long-term leader, garnering 47% of the votes, followed by sub-6 (27%) and wide-area low power (26%).

Molex surveyed more than 200 qualified global decision makers.

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