75% of base stations will be upgraded to 5G-Advanced by 2030

• 5G-Advanced devices per radio base station will quickly gain traction around 2024 to 2026 at the early stage of the commercial launch because devices will grow more aggressively than network deployments over the period.
• Extended Reality applications will promise monetary opportunities to both the consumer markets with use cases like gaming and video streaming, as well as enterprise opportunities such as remote working and virtual training.
• AI/ML will become essential for future networks given the predictive rapid growth in 5G network usage and use case complexities which can’t be managed by legacy optimisation approaches with presumed models.
• The upgrade of the 5G network infrastructure is expected to be faster in the consumer market than in enterprises.

About 75 per cent of 5G base stations will be upgraded to 5G-Advanced by 2030, five years after the estimated commercial launch, an industry expert said.

 “In 5G-Advanced, Extended Reality (XR) applications will promise monetary opportunities to both the consumer markets with use cases like gaming, video streaming, as well as enterprise opportunities such as remote working and virtual training,” Gu Zhang, 5G & Mobile Network Infrastructure Principal Analyst at ABI Research, said.

The regulatory body – 3GPP – approved the Release-18 package in December 2021, making the official start of 5G-Advanced with the planned freeze date in December 2023.

A fully automated network

5G-Advanced is expected to bring continuous enhancements to mobile network capabilities and use case-based support to help mobile operators with 5G commercialisation, long-term development of artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML), and network energy savings for a fully automated network and a sustainable future.

However, Zhang said that XR applications are a major focus of 3GPP working groups to significantly improve XR-specific traffic performance and power consumption for mass market adoption.

“Another noticeable feature is AI/ML which will become essential for future networks given the predictive rapid growth in 5G network usage and use case complexities which can’t be managed by legacy optimisation approaches with presumed models,” he said.

System-level network energy saving is also a critical aspect, he added, as operators need to reduce the deployment cost but assure network performance for various use cases.

The upgrade of the 5G network infrastructure is expected to be faster in the consumer market than in enterprises.

ABI Research said that 75% of 5G base stations will be upgraded to 5G-Advanced, while in the enterprise market the ratio is about half.

Competition has already started

5G-Advanced devices per radio base station will quickly gain traction around 2024 to 2026 at the early stage of the commercial launch because devices will grow more aggressively than network deployments over the period.

Zhang pointed out that the commercial launch of 5G-Advanced will take two or three years, but the competition has already started.

“Taking AI/ML development as an example, industrial leaders such as Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia, ZTE, and Qualcomm have trialled their solutions with mobile operators across the world. Ongoing development in this area will continue to bring improvements on traffic throughputs, network coverage, power saving, anomaly detection, etc.”

Different from previous generations, 5G creates an ecosystem for vertical markets such as automotive, energy, food and agriculture, city management, government, healthcare, manufacturing, and public transportation.

“The influence on the domestic economy from the telco players will be more significant than before and that trend will continue for 5G-Advanced onward. Network operators and vendors should keep close to the regulators and make sure all parties involved grow together when the time-to-market arrives,” Zhang said.