Importance of In-Building Wireless in the 5G Era

5G is entering the mass market in late-2020 and early adopters, as well as large-scale deployments, are illustrating best practices for the rest of the world. An important conclusion from many advanced Asian markets, including South Korea and China, is that outdoor 5G deployments need to take place in parallel with indoor deployments, especially when enterprise applications are considered. For example, many mobile operators in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe have started deploying 5G in outdoor macro sites, as well as busy indoor areas, such as airports, railways, stadiums, and subways.

ABI Research, using the teardown expertise of System Plus Consulting, unpacked nine leading second-generation 5G smartphones to discover that RF Front End (RFFE) content is evidently moving to full level integrated modem-RF system designs, which will be the key to success as the market advances to wider 5G adoption.

At the time of this writing, there are positive signs that commerce is recovering from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for June reaching 50.1 (up from  40.7 in May[i]), the S&P 500 now approaching levels seen back in February, while the Nasdaq recovered from the COVID induced drop in mid-June.

The communication and collaboration market is clearly and indisputably seeing heightened interest and demand during the COVID-19 pandemic. The lingering impacts of these unprecedented times are expected to accelerate adoption of newer technologies like Extended Reality (XR) and increase growth rates of more established markets like video conferencing hardware, which is forecasted to approach US$4 billion by 2025, up from US$2.4 billion in 2019.

A Government Investment Strategy Blueprint

At this challenging time, the role of the Telco has never been so important. They are key to retaining any semblance of normalcy in a COVID affected social and enterprise setting. More importantly, they are a key actor that will be crucial in enabling nations to manage the transition out of COVID-19 related stagnation but also in providing a resilient national infrastructure and stimulate GDP growth. There are numerous strategies that governments can utilize to invest in stimulating growth by strengthening the Telco position. This paper outlines some of those available levers.