The 2023 Brooklyn 6G Summit highlighted both the optimism and uncertainty the telecom industry is experiencing as it progresses from the 5G era, which is about halfway through its developmental cycle, to the 6G era, which is expected to commence in 2028, when the first 6G specification in 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Release 21 is finalized.

IoT deployments play a vital role in many enterprises’ digital transformation strategies, yielding benefits such as productivity gains, cost savings, and achieving environmental sustainability goals. As a result, enterprises continue to increase their spending on IoT solutions and are broadly expanding deployments. 95% expect to see measurable benefits from IoT within two years of deployment.

Vision-based interface (VBI) technologies are poised to become the next breakthrough in elevating the consumer experience across a wide range of connected devices, according to Serhad Doken, chief technology officer with San Jose-based Adeia, which invents, develops and licenses fundamental innovations that shape how people explore and experience digital entertainment.  

The telecom industry has witnessed rapid 5G deployments globally. Digitally-enabled services such as 5G cameras, AR-assisted maintenance, remote control, and robotic patrolling are now being widely used in verticals such as mining, healthcare, transport, and manufacturing. But despite the rapid deployment and adoption of 5G, there is still room for considerable improvement to unleash the true potential of this technology. With 6G technology likely to be commercially deployed only by 2030, the existing 5G technology might soon need to level up.

Over the past decade, home internet adoption in the US has grown steadily and accelerated during the pandemic, when approximately 8M households signed up for home internet service. Parks Associates estimates over 105 million US households will have high-speed internet delivered to their home by 2023. Overall internet adoption – including mobile broadband-only households – will reach 119M.

Smart city solutions empower city governments to acquire distributed city data and unify it while offering a platform to provide innovative solutions for effective city management. Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis, Smart City Solutions Growth Opportunities, finds that the sector is evolving from aiming to create traffic management solutions to converging with industry participants creating solutions for data simulation, the sharing economy, social media, and mass transit.

The current macroeconomic and political global context has put increased pressure on 5G rollouts, slowing expectations for growth in the network security market compared to previous forecasts. Nonetheless, global technology intelligence firm ABI Research forecasts the market to continue a steady upward, albeit slowed, trajectory to reach US$9.2 billion by 2026.

An exciting and fast-moving Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality (AR/VR) market is on the horizon that will bring novel content types and usage scenarios. To support that, networks and connectivity technologies grow in pure bandwidth capabilities and Mixed Reality (XR)-friendly capabilities like latency, network handoff, and slicing. According to global technology intelligence firm ABI Research, 30% of total augmented reality shipments, and 23% of VR shipments will include cellular connectivity by 2027.

5G commercialization remains front of mind for telecom operators, as they continue to lay out substantial capital reservices to build out 5G network infrastructure. However, according to global technology intelligence firm ABI Research, telcos have been unable to tap into the true value of 5G as their underlying networks lack ‘consumability’.

Frost & Sullivan finds that the developing global private cellular network market will likely expand to $6.32 billion by 2026 from $1.83 billion in 2021 at an impressive compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.1%. Of this total, the contribution of private 5G networks will be significant, reaching $5.05 billion over the forecast period from $600 million in 2021.

According to ABI Research, 5G slicing revenue is expected to grow from $309 million in 2022 to approximately $24 billion in 2028, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 106%.

ABI Research’s reports that dozens of always-on 5G portable device models will hit the market in 2022 when sales of these 5G devices will exceed $12 million, growing to $46.5 million by 2026.

There is a dire need to ensure that 5G spectrum policies in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region and South Africa include effective spectrum allocation and management strategies. This is key to ensuring that the evolution from 3G and 4G networks to 5G networks and capabilities is seamless, viable for ecosystem players, and accelerates digital transformation imperatives.

Companies such as Qualcomm, MediaTek, Samsung LSI, Unisoc and Intel were estimated to have captured the top-five cellular baseband revenue share spots in Q2 2021. According to Strategy Analytics, the global cellular baseband market grew 16 percent to $7.2 billion in Q2 2021.

5G edge networks bring new capabilities allowing communications service providers (CSPs) to develop innovative applications, services, and revenue streams in the media and entertainment domain. 5G edge networks stand to unlock cloud video revenues from US$5 billion in 2019 to US$67.5 billion by 2024 at a CAGR of 67%.

5G mobile device models are becoming more diverse and being brought to market more quickly at a wide variety of price points, accelerating affordability and adoption. The mobile market is quickly transitioning to 5G and many leading OEMs are pushing ever-deeper into the lower-priced 5G smartphone segment. The race is on for OEMs to find that all-important level of differentiation to help boost margins and market share.

According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, China’s rapid adoption of 5G technology is powering demand for 5G smartphones. Apple and the domestic trio of OPPO, Vivo and Xiaomi benefitted most as the demand exploded. OPPO, Vivo and Xiaomi closed on Apple capturing 16%, 14% and 12% global market share in the quarter respectively.

Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis finds that the global industrial robotics market will reach revenues of $38.3 billion in 2024 from $22.2 billion in 2020 at a CAGR of 12.2%. Although the industry was curtailed by the COVID-19 pandemic and uncertainty in the automotive business, rising demand from other high-growth sectors is expected to propel it over the next five years.

Despite it still being in its early stage, 5G deployment in China is aggressive, allowing the country to be prepared to maintain/advance its position as the world's leading industrial manufacturing nation and be ready for the next generation of the industrial revolution.

Over these next few months, the post-pandemic landscape will begin to take shape. Technologies like 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR), IoT, and those enabling smart cities and the smart home will play pivotal roles in reshaping businesses, verticals, and economies around the world.