5G’s performance upgrades over 4G will lead to economic growth and improved quality of life in Canada, a review from Deetken Insight found.
Commissioned by Telus, the review found 5G will grow gross domestic product (GDP) by 16 percent ($120 billion) by 2036.
5G fixed wireless access (FWA) will also increase the productive capacity of rural communities by allowing operators to deliver high-speed broadband intent in places fibre can’t get to. “5G FWA eliminates the need for costly deployment of deep-fiber fixed access infrastructure while also offering peak rates that few fixed technologies can match,” the review states.
However, Canada needs to take several steps to realize the full benefits of 5G. Spectrum allocations for mid and high-band frequencies are between one and five years behind compared to Germany, Japan, Italy, Australia, and South Korea. Deployment has been limited to low-band networks as these are cheaper to deploy on a non-standalone basis.
The public sector, mobile network operators and various industry stakeholders can take steps to speed up the deployment of 5G, including releasing spectrum quickly and developing an infrastructure strategy that helps with deployment. It’s a must-need for a country expected to see its 5G subscriber count grow by 4 million over the next 12-15 months.
“An ambitious yet coordinated approach to the rollout of 5G is critical to ensuring the benefits are achieved while also ensuring Canada’s 5G networks and the applications that run on them are reliable and resilient,” the review states.
The approach needs to touch on several factors, the review states, including:
- timely access to relevant spectrum
- network infrastructure through government investments that support coverage, bandwidth and latency
- having connected devices and software updates available
- defining and implementing a “performance management framework” to track 5G performance and contributions
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Source: Deetken Insight
