VIAVI Solutions (NASDAQ:VIAV) has released industry data indicating that 55 commercial 5G mobile networks are expected to be live worldwide before the start of 2020, the year that 5G was originally expected to debut.
A total of 13 commercial 5G networks were launched during 2018, including both mobile and fixed wireless deployments. VIAVI findings indicate that deployments will more than triple this year, with 42 new network launches anticipated in 2019. As a result, a total of 55 live 5G networks are expected to be in service by the end of this year. A large proportion of these deployments are expected to be located in Europe and the Middle East (21 and 14, respectively), followed by 10 in Asia, eight in the Americas and two in the Australasia region.
At this time last year, only 28 service providers had reported that they were in field trials with 5G architecture. However, 3GPP standards for 5G are not expected to be final until 2020; thus, service providers need to be careful about finalizing architectures, VIAVI says, and detailed technical information about deployment plans is still limited.
"5G represents a paradigm shift in the way that networks are designed, deployed and managed, introducing inherent complexities in the architecture as well as exacting demands on performance and latency," said Sameh Yamany, chief technology officer, VIAVI. "The anticipated improvements that 5G offers will depend on precise operation of multiple elements throughout the network."
The complete "State of 5G Deployments" infographic is available at https://www.viavisolutions.com/en-us/literature/state-5g-deployments-2019-poster-chart-en.pdf. The data was compiled from publicly available sources for information purposes only, as part of the VIAVI practice of tracking trends to enable technology development. "The State of 5G Deployments" serves as a companion document to the VIAVI Gigabit Monitor, a visual database of gigabit internet deployments worldwide.