Emerging opportunities for 5G monetisation

Experts discuss how mobile operators can use standalone 5G and 5G-Advanced to provide customers with greater value

The roll out of 5G Standalone networks, which have a cloud-native core, is opening up new monetisation opportunities for mobile operators. That was one of the key messages from the expert speakers on a webinar hosted by the GSMA’s 5G Futures Community. As standalone 5G networks are much more flexible than their predecessors, mobile operators can tailor the connectivity they provide to meet the needs of both individuals and businesses.

In the consumer market, mobile operators are increasingly monetising 5G through speed-based consumer tariffs, temporarily boosting throughput for specific applications and providing network slices for users at events, as well as by rolling out fixed wireless access (FWA) networks, the webinar heard.

In the enterprise market, 5G is supporting use cases that aren’t well-suited to Wi-Fi, according to Rachel Lecrone, Senior Solutions Partner at Verizon Business. “Anytime you have a person or a vehicle or someone moving around the facility, Wi-Fi doesn’t always handle those handoffs from access point to access point very well,” she noted. “5G is designed to make those things happen seamlessly,” making it ideal for connecting mobile robots and people moving from one part of a facility to another.

Rachel Lecrone also highlighted how industrial enterprises are using “relatively inexpensive” 5G-connected sensors to support predictive maintenance, as well as 5G-connected cameras to ensure shop-floor employees are following safety rules and can get support or help when they need it. But she stressed the need for the industrial ecosystem to equip more devices, equipment and machines with 5G, as well as Wi-Fi.

Meanwhile, in the consumer market, “we’re starting to see operators thinking outside of the box,” said Sylwia Kechiche, Senior Director of Industry Analysis, Opensignal. “They are thinking about speed-based consumer 5G tariffs, providing boosts to certain segments, such as gamers, providing experience-type content, and also network slices for users at certain events,” such as Formula One races. The arrival of 5G-Advanced technologies over the next few years will further increase telcos’ flexibility.

But for many operators, the next step will be to deploy a cloud-native 5G core. Sylwia Kechiche highlighted that only a small proportion of 5G mobile operators are currently running standalone networks – 57 operators in 32 countries, whereas there are 297 5G operators in 116 countries. Opensignal’s research shows major differences in average 5G download speeds by country (ranging from 445 Mbps in South Korea to 53 Mbps in Indonesia).

Faster and more reliable fixed wireless access

The FWA market is a leading growth engine for 5G operators today. “With the arrival 5G, … there is an improvement in the quality of the network experience, and this is mostly because of spectral efficiency compared to 4G,” Sylwia Kechiche explained, before stressing the importance of a consistent and reliable connection. Opensignal’s figures show that 5G FWA networks in Italy, for example, far exceed their predecessors in terms of consistency, download speeds and uplink speeds.  In the US, the mobile operators have used 5G FWA to rapidly expand their broadband coverage, adding between 600,000 and 700,000 net connections per quarter, Sylwia Kechiche added.

Standalone 5G can further enhance the FWA proposition by enabling mobile operators to provide different tiers of connectivity. Carina Martins Ueta, Senior Customer Solutions Director at Ericsson, explained how Elisa in Finland, for example, is offering two tiers of fixed wireless access, with the premium offering providing customers with faster speeds. In India, Reliance Jio “launched 5G standalone from day one and they are using slicing, differentiated connectivity, to separate resources for fixed and mobile subscribers. And, of course, the number of fixed wireless subscribers is growing really fast,” she added.

Delivering differentiated connectivity as and when its needed

The ability to provide differentiated connectivity can also be valuable at major events.
At “big events in the entrance, there’s this huge amount of people trying to connect and use the mobile phone to pay for the ticket to enter the event, or to scan the QR code to buy the tickets,” noted Carina Martins Ueta, noting that differentiated connectivity can help meet this surge in demand. “T-Mobile is using it in most of the big events here in U.S.,” she added. Similarly, network slicing can enable mobile operators to provide premium connectivity for live broadcasting and for police cars that need to urgently access a database or video stream.

With the rollout of standalone 5G and 5G-Advanced technologies, mobile networks are set to become increasingly programmable, enabling telcos to make the shift from a pipeline business to a platform business, explained Carina Martins Ueta. Whereas a pipeline business is essentially commoditised, mobile operators now have an opportunity to transform their networks into platforms for innovation by third parties.