GSA 2024 a Year in Review
2024 has seen continued investment by mobile operators in 5G networks and more devices becoming commercially available. With 5G deployed in both public and private mobile networks, new mobile and FWA services launched by operators and new 5G NTN partnerships formed, 2024 has seen more milestones passed. Dig into the data you need to guide and inform your planning for 2025 and beyond.
GSA has been tracking the roll-out of 5G since the beginning. At the end of 2024, the momentum behind 5G continues, with 624 operators investing in 5G, 55% of which have launched commercial services.
There is 5G investment globally, with very few gaps where there aren’t at least 5G trials happening. 184 countries are currently investing in 5G networks – of these, 126 countries have now a commercial deployment of 5G. The most popular spectrum bands, by some margin, are n77 and n78. There is also a lot of activity around the FR2 bands, but not yet in terms of actual commercial deployments.
2024 has seen ongoing launches of new 5G devices – up over 50% year-on-year. The number of 5G devices across all form factors has now reached a total of 2,142 devices, with the proportion of commercially available devices now up to 87.4%. While the split across form factors has remained broadly similar, with phones still dominating there has been some movement in the industrial router and FWA categories. This reflects the rollout of 5G services across all sectors, including consumer, business, industrial and IoT type applications.
While the adoption of 5G Standalone has been slower than general 5G market momentum, it remains the foundation for many of the things the industry has been talking about around 5G, including massive machine-type communications, reliable low-latency and many of the vertical opportunities.
We’ve seen 151 operators in 63 countries investing in 5G SA, that’s 31% of the 624 operators known to be investing in 5G networks. At least 64 operators in 35 countries have now launched 5G SA networks. In addition, 30 operators are currently deploying 5G SA networks, with a further 57 planning to launch.
GSA also tracks private mobile networks in the GAMBoD database, including both dedicated and hybrid deployment models. In terms of technology, there is growth on the 5G side, and in networks where both 4G and 5G are used. LTE is used in the majority (1,172) of the catalogued customers deploying private mobile networks, with 5G being deployed in 46% of references, although limited in real industrial situations. The manufacturing sector dominates 5G customer verticals, and electrical equipment, appliances and components is the largest sub-vertical. GSA data includes both public and confidential customer references, making it the most comprehensive dataset on private mobile network deployments.
In 5G fixed wireless access, GSA data confirms 201 operators are investing in 5G FWA. This includes 169 operators that have launched 3GPP-compliant 5G fixed wireless access services, up from 152 in November 2023. Overall, 5G accounts for 34% of all FWA launched services, up from 26% in November 2023. According to data gathered in this year’s FWA CPE vendor survey, conducted by the GSA 4G/5G FWA Forum, FWA 5G shipments grew to 10.2m in 2023, up 18% compared with 2022, reaching a share of 34% of total shipments. By the end of this year, more than 40% of FWA shipments are expected to be 5G-enabled, reaching 15.6m (+53% growth YoY). The majority of vendors surveyed reported that they expect 5G CPE prices will reach parity with those of 4G CPE by 2025. 5G RedCap has a role to play here, enabling vendors to get the overall CPE cost down – perhaps not with the performance of a ‘full fat’ 5G FWA offering, but still able to tap into the new spectrum and other capabilities.
Finally, 2024 also saw a lot of activity in the area of 5G non-terrestrial networks, with satellite operator partnerships and a new value chain of device manufacturers, software operating system companies and telecom operators. GSA is tracking the types of services being launched, who is doing what, and how it impacts the use of spectrum. Early launches have been either narrowband or based on proprietary solutions. With 3GPP Release-17 onwards, NTN is part of the 5G family.
GSA 2024 a Year in Review
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© GSA 2024
GSA 2024 a Year in Review
