5G Deployments to Begin Affecting Mobile Data Traffic in 2021, Cisco Forecasts

Large-scale deployments of 5G infrastructure are likely to begin in 2020 and will begin to have an impact on mobile data traffic the following year, Cisco reported Tuesday; 4G will account for 79 percent of all mobile data traffic in 2021, while 5G will account for 1.5 percent that year. And 4G will account for 58 percent of mobile connections in 2021, up from 26 percent in 2016. Mobile data traffic will be 20 percent of total IP traffic in 2021, up from 8 percent in 2016. Mobile network connection speeds are to increase to 20.4 Mbps in 2021, up from 6.8 Mbps in 2016. Machine-to-machine connections will be 29 percent of all mobile connections in 2021, up from 5 percent in 2016, Cisco said. That increase in M2M connections will occur because of general growth in the use of IoT, it said. “With the proliferation of IoT, live mobile video, augmented and virtual reality applications, and more innovative experiences for consumer and business users alike, 5G technology will have significant relevance not just for mobility but rather for networking as a whole,” said Vice President-Service Provider Marketing Doug Webster in a news release. “Broader and more extensive architectural transformations involving programmability and automation will also be needed to support the capabilities 5G enables, and to address not just today's demands but also the extensive possibilities on the horizon.”