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The Wired Guide to 5G
December 22, 2019
AT&T's new service uses the low band. It also has a mmWave service that it only offers to business customers in a few locations. Sprint is the only major US carrier to offer a 5G service based on the mid band, with download speeds between 110 and 400 Mbps according to Canaccord Genuity. It's only available in parts of a few cities, including New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, but the service covers a much larger area than Verizon’s 5G, according to Sprint's coverage maps. The company claims it reaches about 11 million people, about 3 percent of the US population. More carriers aren't yet taking advantage of the mid band because the FCC has been slow to make it available. One reason for the delay in the US is that more of the mid band is claimed by satellite providers and military radar systems. The agency is now scrambling to auction off more mid-band spectrum for 5G.
In contrast, China and South Korea have moved rapidly to turn over the mid band to 5G. South Korean carriers are on track to cover 90 percent of the country's population by the end of 2019, says Phil Kendall of the consulting firm Strategy Analytics. "Average download speeds across these networks are typically between 300 and 500 Mbps, with peak download speeds between 800 and 900 Mbps," Kendall says. At the moment, though, the service works far better outside than indoors. "There is indoor coverage, but the depth of coverage is below that of 4G, and the download speeds can drop quite dramatically," he says.
Even as 5G becomes a reality in a few countries, it's still far from a global phenomenon. Many people around the world are still stuck on 3G, if they can get mobile service at all. Even in 2020, OpenSignal predicts, 3G will be more popular globally than 5G.
5G networks require a strong underlying 4G layer, and leading wireless infrastructure 4G OEMs should also enjoy strong 5G share. With Nokia, Ericsson, and Huawei capturing roughly 80% of 4G market share, these three OEMs are well positioned for 5G. Further, with Huawei potentially banned from certain markets given national security concerns, Nokia and Ericsson are positioned to benefit outside of China. However, with China comprising roughly 60% of global 4G and anticipated 5G base stations, Huawei should still enjoy strong scale and 5G share.
The increasing mix shift to 5G smartphones should enable Qualcomm, Qorvo, and Skyworks to grow faster than the smartphone market. In fact, Qualcomm anticipates their dollar content in a like-for-like 5G smartphone versus a 4G smartphone is 1.5X greater. This content increase is driven by both the more expensive 5G baseband and increased RF content for Qualcomm. Given the complexity of 5G smartphones, increased 4G RF content as Chinese OEMs move to more fully integrated 4G solutions in order to reduce the RF footprint and lower complexity in 5G smartphones
December 22, 2019
AT&T's new service uses the low band. It also has a mmWave service that it only offers to business customers in a few locations. Sprint is the only major US carrier to offer a 5G service based on the mid band, with download speeds between 110 and 400 Mbps according to Canaccord Genuity. It's only available in parts of a few cities, including New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, but the service covers a much larger area than Verizon’s 5G, according to Sprint's coverage maps. The company claims it reaches about 11 million people, about 3 percent of the US population. More carriers aren't yet taking advantage of the mid band because the FCC has been slow to make it available. One reason for the delay in the US is that more of the mid band is claimed by satellite providers and military radar systems. The agency is now scrambling to auction off more mid-band spectrum for 5G.
In contrast, China and South Korea have moved rapidly to turn over the mid band to 5G. South Korean carriers are on track to cover 90 percent of the country's population by the end of 2019, says Phil Kendall of the consulting firm Strategy Analytics. "Average download speeds across these networks are typically between 300 and 500 Mbps, with peak download speeds between 800 and 900 Mbps," Kendall says. At the moment, though, the service works far better outside than indoors. "There is indoor coverage, but the depth of coverage is below that of 4G, and the download speeds can drop quite dramatically," he says.
- Verizon has committed to deploy 5G in 30 markets by year-end, and T-Mobile and AT&T have launched their respective low-band 5G services recently to complement their mmWave services.
- South Korea should have full 5G coverage, including in rural areas, in about two or three years, says Roger Entner of Recon Analytics. But, as Entner points out, South Korea is a relatively small country, geographically. According to the Korean Ministry of Science and ICT, Korean operators have already signed up nearly 4M 5G subscribers through October, a much faster pace than the migration to 4G.
- Europe has already launched 5G in many areas, including the Nordics, UK, Switzerland, and Italy. 2020 will see key markets launch 5G, including the second-largest wireless market India, Japan, Brazil and Russia among others. Switzerland, another small country, will likely cover about 90 percent of its population by the end of 2019, Entner says.
- The Chinese state media outlet Xinhua announced in October that the country's three mobile carriers had launched 5G in 50 cities, though it isn’t clear how widespread coverage is or how fast the connections are. "We think the reality is something short of seamless coverage in these areas," says Kendall of Strategy Analytics. Chinese media reports speeds ranging between 100 Mbps and 1.2 Gbps in Beijing, so Kendall says, the network still needs to be improved. All three mobile operators commercially launched 5G services on November1, and these operators could deploy 130,000 5G base stations by year-end. China is targeting by the end of 2020 to increase 5G base station deployments to approximately 1M, and this is 10 times the scale of the entire network of a large U.S.
Even as 5G becomes a reality in a few countries, it's still far from a global phenomenon. Many people around the world are still stuck on 3G, if they can get mobile service at all. Even in 2020, OpenSignal predicts, 3G will be more popular globally than 5G.
5G networks require a strong underlying 4G layer, and leading wireless infrastructure 4G OEMs should also enjoy strong 5G share. With Nokia, Ericsson, and Huawei capturing roughly 80% of 4G market share, these three OEMs are well positioned for 5G. Further, with Huawei potentially banned from certain markets given national security concerns, Nokia and Ericsson are positioned to benefit outside of China. However, with China comprising roughly 60% of global 4G and anticipated 5G base stations, Huawei should still enjoy strong scale and 5G share.
The increasing mix shift to 5G smartphones should enable Qualcomm, Qorvo, and Skyworks to grow faster than the smartphone market. In fact, Qualcomm anticipates their dollar content in a like-for-like 5G smartphone versus a 4G smartphone is 1.5X greater. This content increase is driven by both the more expensive 5G baseband and increased RF content for Qualcomm. Given the complexity of 5G smartphones, increased 4G RF content as Chinese OEMs move to more fully integrated 4G solutions in order to reduce the RF footprint and lower complexity in 5G smartphones
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