Fifth generation cellular network (5G) will make its first appearance in the internet of things (IoT) market in late 2020, but it’s not going to be an instant hit, according to Iot analyst firm Berg Insight.
The Swedish research firm said that while the first 5G cellular IoT modules will become available to developers this year, 5G will account for just under 3% of the total installed base of cellular IoT devices at the start.
“5G still has some way to go before it can become a mainstream technology for cellular IoT,” said Tobias Ryberg, Principal Analyst and author of the report.
“Just like 4G when it was first introduced, the initial version of 5G is mostly about improving network performance and data capacity,” he added. “This is only relevant for a smaller subset of high-bandwidth cellular IoT applications like connected cars, security cameras and industrial routers.”
Berg Insight predicts that the real commercial breakthrough will not happen until the massive machine type communication (mMTC) use case has been implemented in the standard.
“Since NB-IoT has only just started to appear in commercial products, there is no immediate demand for a successor. Over time, fifth generation mobile networks will however become necessary to cope with the expected exponential growth of IoT connections and data traffic,” it said.
