In this vignette of The 5G Factor, Ron Westfall and Steve Clint Wheelock provide their perspective on Qualcomm’s view of the state of the 5G market and its advocacy for advancing 5G standalone (SA) implementations to spur ecosystem-wide developer support and innovation.
The discussion highlighted:
Qualcomm Calls for 5G to Standalone. In a recent blog, Qualcomm advocates that many of the key innovations in 5G require 5G SA — a network architecture that can allow new, differentiated services which can rapidly diversify revenue streams. However, only 22% of the 524 operators investing in 5G networks are investing in 5G SA. In notable contrast, over 83% of all announced 5G devices support 5G SA. We provide our perspective on why more operators need to advance their 5G SA plans to accelerate the pace of innovation across the 5G ecosystem and what benefits 5G SA brings in contrast to 5G non-standalone (NSA) implementations.
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Transcript:
Ron Westfall: One thing that caught our eye is that Qualcomm just shared its perspective on the state of the 5G market in a recent blog. Specifically, they’re calling out for 5G to stand alone. In other words, that’s the high noon scenario for 5G. And that would certainly be welcomed when it comes to 5G standalone implementations. And as a little background to enable and energize the initial 5G standards, that started with 3GPP Release 15, now that was implemented for 5G standalone starting in 2017.
And as a result across the mobile ecosystem, 5G non-standalone was implemented in the first wave of 5G deployments that we witnessed. Now the 5G NSA architecture non-standalone allows a new 5G radio access network to augment existing 4G core and RAND capabilities. And since NSA or non-standalone didn’t require a 5G core network to be deployed, mobile operators were able to accelerate their 5G timelines and bring, for example, 5G enhanced mobile broadband enhances to their customers sooner as result.
Today, 5G non-standalone is globally adopted and it’s delivering enhanced smartphone experiences, as we’ve seen. However, many of the key innovations in 5G require 5G standalone to literally be standing alone. As the network architecture that is developed and designed to allow new differentiated services that could be more readily monetized for new revenue service as one example. But basically for innovation across the board.
And so Clint, from your perspective, how do you see 5G standalone making a difference in advancing the 5G market and moving the 5G ecosystem forward? And basically getting away from the excess hype that we witnessed over the last few years with 5G standalone. And getting us more focused on real world practical applications and services. What’s your view?
Clint Wheelock: Well, I mean I thought the Qualcomm news and the report, the key findings were spot on. And I mean it really does seem like there are some key areas for 5G standalone can be a terrific difference maker. Mainly those that focus around delivering low latency experiences. So few examples, scaling, delay sensitive applications like extended reality including virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, and the like. And essentially the building blocks of the metaverse that’s right around the corner. Which can expand some of the availability of cloud gaming and similar applications for consumers.
And then on the enterprise and industrial side of things, enterprise and industrial applications, things like digital twins, just to name a few things. And then also, as I know you know Ron, there’s a huge growth in independent private wireless networks that use network slicing, wireless ethernet, programmability to meet some really demanding use cases. And these private networks are really picking up momentum and a lot of market acceptance right now.
Ron Westfall: Yeah, that’s spot on, Clint. And I also see as another, I think, prime example is wide area IoT gaining ecosystem traction. Particularly as capabilities such as new radio light reduced capabilities that enable device stream lighting for improved cost efficiency. And that is referred to in shorthand as RedCap. And so from my perspective, this can aid the 5G private network adoption, as well as introduce no new momentum for this adoption when RedCap becomes more readily available.
And the good news here is that 3GPP Release 17 basically solidify that part of the standard. And it can start paving the way for standardized implementations across 5G networks towards the end of 2024. So definitely RedCap capabilities will play a major role in making 5G standalone more successful and more commercially available. And as a additional background, specifically as of Q1 of this year, over 83% of all announced 5G devices supported 5G standalone. However, but only 22% of the 524 operators out there that have already invested in 5G networks, are also investing in 5G standalone.
And as such, we’re seeing the need for more operators to implement 5G standalone to further incentivize, for example, the developer community. To prioritize 5G application development in areas such as digital twin technologies and other areas that we already touched on, for example, more advanced cloud gaming capabilities and so forth. So this I think is a tremendous upside that we’re really we’re only at the front end of the 5G journey as a result, even though we’ve already gone through this hype cycle that isn’t unique to 5G. We’ve seen it with other technologies such as Voice over IP and Metaverse that we touched on and many other technologies. But what we’re now getting is a level set. The ability to see that 5G is really just at the front end of the capabilities that it can deliver. And a lot of it’s going to depend on 5G standalone being implemented by more operators.
And for additional context, when the operators saw that Release 15 came out, that allowed basically for the foundation of a 5G standalone architecture. That is enabling 5G core capabilities to actually line up, be aligned fully with 5G new radio capabilities and overall RAND capabilities. And so we’re still seeing the operators relying heavily on their previous implementation of LTE 4G core. But it’s really with the 5G core implementations that we’ll see, I think, many of these breakthroughs.
And that I think started coming with a Release 16, which basically addressed the needs of specific verticals such as in the industrial area as well as enterprises and very exciting automotive use cases. But also what was important about Release 16 is that it introduced precise positioning. And so this I think will be integral to how 5G use cases can really take off in, for example, the enterprise industrial realms.
But also with now Release 17 becoming more mature, again, those RedCap capabilities are going to enable the ecosystem out there to take advantage of those 5G IoT use cases. That I think will be difference makers in terms of, for example, the monetization that we talked about. But also, certainly those extended reality use cases that are all basically predicated on 5G standalone being implemented.
And so I think on that note, we can wrap up the fact that the 5G market really is headed toward a lot more potential. And we didn’t even touch on 5G-Advanced in this conversation. So-
Clint Wheelock: I have to say, I mean it’s just fascinating to see what a long runway we have with the proliferation and growth of some of these key 5G applications. I mean a lot for the operators left to enable as you’re mentioning. And then when we think about long tail applications, we typically think about kind of niche markets and things like that. But some of these are really substantial opportunities.
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Author Information
Ron is an experienced, customer-focused research expert and analyst, with over 20 years of experience in the digital and IT transformation markets, working with businesses to drive consistent revenue and sales growth.
He is a recognized authority at tracking the evolution of and identifying the key disruptive trends within the service enablement ecosystem, including a wide range of topics across software and services, infrastructure, 5G communications, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), analytics, security, cloud computing, revenue management, and regulatory issues.
Prior to his work with The Futurum Group, Ron worked with GlobalData Technology creating syndicated and custom research across a wide variety of technical fields. His work with Current Analysis focused on the broadband and service provider infrastructure markets.
Ron holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from University of Nevada — Las Vegas and a Bachelor of Arts in political science/government from William and Mary.
Clint brings over 20 years of market research and consulting experience, focused on emerging technology markets. He was co-founder and CEO of Dash Network, an integrated research and digital media firm focused on the CX market, which was acquired by The Futurum Group in 2022. He previously founded Tractica with a focus on human interaction with technology, including coverage of AI, user interface technologies, advanced computing, and other emerging sectors. Acquired by Informa Group, Clint served as Chief Research Officer for Informa’s research division, Omdia, with management and content strategy responsibility, formed by the combination of Tractica, Ovum, IHS Markit Technology, and Heavy Reading.
Clint was previously the founder and President of Pike Research, a leading market intelligence firm focused on the global clean technology industry, which was acquired by Navigant Consulting where he was Managing Director of the Navigant Research business.
Prior to Pike Research, Clint was Chief Research Officer at ABI Research, a New York-based industry analyst firm concentrating on the impact of emerging technologies on global consumer and business markets.
Clint holds a Master of Business Administration in Telecommunications Management from the University of Dallas and a Bachelor of Arts in History from Washington & Lee University.
