In a paper that it says ‘busts myths’ surrounding the value of the new infrastructure, comms technology and services firm Ericsson is claiming to have brought a sense of reality to the debate as to whether there is an opportunity for a 5G premium consumer offering.
The Ericsson ConsumerLab study was based on 35,000 interviews with smartphone users aged 15–69, carried out in 22 different countries and the company claims that the views of the participants are representative of almost a billion people.
The report said that consumers will see a near-term benefit from 5G, as they look forward to the technology providing relief from urban network congestion, and to bring more home broadband choices.
Ericsson says that the research shatters received wisdoms such as 5G offers consumers no short-term benefits; there are no real use cases for 5G, nor is there a price premium on 5G; smartphones will be the silver bullet for 5G: the magical single solution to delivering fifth-generation services; current usage patterns can be used to predict future 5G demand.
Instead, the study observes that consumers expect 5G to provide relief from urban network congestion in the near-ter. Respondents also anticipated more home broadband choices to be available with the launch of 5G and that smartphone owners are willing to pay a 20% premium for 5G services, while half of early adopters would pay as much as 32% more. However, two-fifths of these high spenders expect new use cases and payment models as well as a secure 5G network in addition to a consistently high internet speed.
Video consumption is set to rise with 5G and the research found that consumers expect to not only stream video in higher resolutions but also use immersive video formats such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), resulting, said Ericsson, in an additional three hours of video content being watched weekly on mobile devices .The study also reveals that one in five smartphone users’ data usage could reach more than 200 GBytes per month on a 5G device by 2025.
“Through our research, we have busted four myths about consumers’ views on 5G and answered questions such as whether 5G features will require new types of devices, or whether smartphones will be the silver bullet for 5G,” remarked Jasmeet Singh Sethi, head of ConsumerLab, Ericsson Research. “Consumers clearly state that they think smartphones are unlikely to be the sole solution for 5G.”
The report said that consumers will see a near-term benefit from 5G, as they look forward to the technology providing relief from urban network congestion, and to bring more home broadband choices.
Ericsson says that the research shatters received wisdoms such as 5G offers consumers no short-term benefits; there are no real use cases for 5G, nor is there a price premium on 5G; smartphones will be the silver bullet for 5G: the magical single solution to delivering fifth-generation services; current usage patterns can be used to predict future 5G demand.
Instead, the study observes that consumers expect 5G to provide relief from urban network congestion in the near-ter. Respondents also anticipated more home broadband choices to be available with the launch of 5G and that smartphone owners are willing to pay a 20% premium for 5G services, while half of early adopters would pay as much as 32% more. However, two-fifths of these high spenders expect new use cases and payment models as well as a secure 5G network in addition to a consistently high internet speed.
Video consumption is set to rise with 5G and the research found that consumers expect to not only stream video in higher resolutions but also use immersive video formats such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), resulting, said Ericsson, in an additional three hours of video content being watched weekly on mobile devices .The study also reveals that one in five smartphone users’ data usage could reach more than 200 GBytes per month on a 5G device by 2025.
“Through our research, we have busted four myths about consumers’ views on 5G and answered questions such as whether 5G features will require new types of devices, or whether smartphones will be the silver bullet for 5G,” remarked Jasmeet Singh Sethi, head of ConsumerLab, Ericsson Research. “Consumers clearly state that they think smartphones are unlikely to be the sole solution for 5G.”
