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It may seem long overdue to declare, but 5G is finally beginning to establish itself as a primary cellular communication technology. Mobile operators are expanding their networks across several global regions, including North America, Western Europe, and Asia-Pacific. In China, operators have ramped up deployment of New Radio (NR) base stations, with others now relying on Standalone (SA) mode, where NR is no longer tethered to Long Term Evolution (LTE). This has opened the door for network slicing, edge computing, and increased automation. As 5G develops as an SA network, it will introduce three new advancements: a Service-Based Architecture (SBA), native support for network slicing, and a control plane/user plane split. 

The Enterprise 5G Opportunity

Since the start of its development and the first standardization work in The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), 5G has always focused on providing cellular connectivity for enterprise verticals, in addition to the legacy consumer focus in which previous generations excelled. For the enterprise community, 5G is much more than just “4G + another G,” as the distinct features of 5G enable connectivity for completely new applications in several enterprise verticals:

The Internet of Things (IoT) consists of billions of connected devices. By 2025, it is estimated that global IoT connections will reach more than 42 billion devices, a 5-year Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 24%.

As IoT data-enabled services continue to expand, real-time data integration and streaming analytics are becoming very sought after. Data integration, ingestion, real-time stream processing, and streaming analytics services currently fall under the umbrella of Data Management services within the IoT value chain, where each component has also seen economic growth.

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While Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs) are dominating the scene for outdoor Location-Based Services (LBS), including automotive navigation and smartphone applications, new technologies, commonly called Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS), are making inroads to support new high-accuracy location use cases, such as asset and material tracking, personnel tracking, vehicle and fleet tracking, tool and equipment tracking, indoor navigation, and proximity services. Typical end markets that will benefit from RTLS solutions include manufacturing campuses, airports, hospitals, warehouses, oil & gas sites, and other smart building spaces.

Current cities are dominated by microcity clusters, defined as dense aggregations of economic and social life. There are nearly 13,000 active microcities around the world. While COVID-19 has exposed the vulnerability of these clusters, their role as engines of economic growth will remain unchallenged hotbeds for urban technology innovation and the focal points of urban living. 

The 5G smartphone market is now outperforming its predecessor generations on nearly every metric. Between the number of mobile devices, subscribers, and networks available at launch, 5G is the most accelerated mobile technology generation ever launched. Technical challenges, new features and functionalities, as well as new radio elements for supporting new radio bands and combinations will continue leading to substantial changes in the design of mobile devices. This complexity level is not just limited to the high end, as the availability of 5G smartphone models will become more diverse, brought to market quickly at a wide variety of price points, democratizing the 5G experience.

2021: Year of the Cold Chain

With COVID-19 vaccine production complete and distributors urgently looking for ways to transport it safely, all eyes are on the effectiveness of the cold chain. Early vaccine candidates require ultra-low temperatures, as much as -70 degrees Celsius©, or -94 degrees Fahrenheit. This is influenced by a lack of data storage specifications and shelf life for these new types of Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines. The containers to store and transport them are not widely available and not required for common vaccines. Constant temperature control is needed E2E from the manufacturing site to the inoculation sites.

As we unfold what smarter connectivity looks like in the future, consider the following stats: