ABI Research’s global team of analysts are continuously examining current trends in technology and key markets to produce accurate forecasts and provide guidance to our clients. In November, these forecasts included a huge uptick in the use of 5G and increased use of satellite broadband and ultra-wideband (UWB) technology where 5G will not be available. 

Never has digital technology been so important to the fortunes of any organization. The fallout and adjustment to life with endemic COVID-19 continues to fuel the need for alternative ways of working that rely on technology innovation and digitization in key critical spaces such as energy, manufacturing, logistics, supply chain, and semiconductors. 

Energy consumption, decarbonization, and eco-friendly solutions have become a growing concern for many industrial sectors. The telco industry has been taking steps to address these concerns. During its recent 2021 Better World Summit, Huawei highlighted how technological innovation reduces energy consumption and embraces sustainability to create a greener economy. While Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is a means of networking the world and building stronger economies, the well-being of the planet has to be just as important a priority as the growth of more consumer and enterprise data, higher telco speeds, and better performance.

Industrial digital twins, once rarely discussed among C-level executives, are firmly in the mainstream. This transformative technology is being used to test the waters with new operational approaches and collect real-time data on asset performance. The opportunities of digital twins for manufacturers are exciting.

Last week, I was honored to moderate a panel session organized by ABI Research that debated the future of real time location system (RTLS) technologies, the role that 5G positioning will play in shaping this market, and what steps the 5G ecosystem should take to make 5G positioning the right technology for solving key enterprise pain-points (watch the replay here).

Veterans Sylvia Lu, Board Member of 5G ACIA, Chair of WG4, and Chief Cellular Strategist at u-blox; Doctor Arndt Kadelka, Technology Innovation Expert at Deutsche Telekom; Daisy Zhu, Vice President of Wireless Marketing at Huawei; Joe Barrett, President of the GSA; and Malik Saadi, Vice President of Strategic Technologies at ABI Research, were invited to the panel session to share their expertise and experiences and identify key opportunities and challenges facing 5G positioning in the market place.

Sponsored by Oracle

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.

Every day, ABI Research helps the world understand how technology is shaping the future. And, we understand that women are becoming a force that will increasingly play an integral role in shaping technology itself.