The Impact of 5G ROI on Future-G Investment 

The rollout of 5G has been more of a slow burn than a big bang and it may be some time before we see its full potential. This slower pace can be attributed to a variety of global challenges, including the impacts of the pandemic, geopolitical conflicts, and economic downturns, all of which have complicated the global rollout of 5G. For MSPs (Mobile Service Providers), the primary challenge lies in securing a return on investment that justifies the substantial cost of deploying 5G infrastructure. As shown in the graph one of the key challenges for 5G in terms of delivering a significant ROI is that ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) in the consumer sector is expected to fall over the next few years making it critical for MSPs to target a greater range of verticals with new products and services. 

Although 5G promises significant advancements in terms of higher data rates, low levels of latency and support for large-scale IoT deployments, much of this rests on the deployment of Standalone 5G. Although there are a large number of 5G networks globally, most are utilising NSA (Non-Standalone) 5G with very few offering the full 5G experience. One of the key challenges is that 5G is yet to offer a truly compelling value proposition for market verticals outside of the consumer market, numerous pilots and test projects have been undertaken which demonstrate the efficacy of 5G as a solution but very few have made it into full production scenarios. Network slicing, for all its initial promise, seems to be a technology in search of a use case. Now, this may all change as technology matures and this is certainly something that many MSPs will be relying on. The success or otherwise of the 5G rollout will certainly have an impact on the development and rollout of future generations of mobile technologies, there has already been some talk that 6G may be more of a software upgrade, many MSPs will certainly not have the appetite for deploying expensive new radio infrastructure so soon after a challenging and expensive rollout of 5G.