Written by Mary Lennighan for Telecoms.com
The Internet of Things will account for more than a quarter of 5G roaming connections in the next few years, new research shows, which could be good news for operators.
The number of 5G IoT roaming connections will reach 142 million by 2027, up from just 15 million this year, Juniper Research predicts. IoT will account for 27% of all 5G roaming connections by that same date, four years hence, the analyst firm notes.
The growth over the forecast period will be driven by increasing deployments of 5G standalone networks, it claims. As customers get used to the full 5G experience standalone networks will facilitate – higher speeds, lower latency, private networks, advanced services and so forth – so demand for 5G standalone-specific roaming agreements will grow. Essentially, customers will increasingly want the same experience they have at home while they are roaming.
While that’s probably more of an enterprise services and consumer issue, there will be a knock-on effect in IoT too, particularly with enterprise and private networks. Faster speeds and lower latencies are good news for 5G IoT roaming and help to improve the value proposition of the roaming model, Juniper Research points out. And when using enterprise private networks operators will be able to monetise traffic based on quality of service, it says, giving mission-critical services like healthcare, augmented reality and autonomous driving as examples.
