5G may be five years away from a commercial rollout at the moment, but Juniper Research are forecasting a rapid adoption once it becomes available, with 240m connections in the first five years, thanks largely to IoT devices.

5G is currently being developed and will be subjected to a complex set of standardisation activities over the next five years before it is rolled out in any form of commercial available connection.

However, initial research and work suggests that the next generation of mobile connection will result in higher data rates, longer battery life, greater user/device support and reduced latency, laying the path for an explosion in IoT adoption.

While 240m connections may sound like a huge figure, it will only represent three per cent of global mobile connections at that point, with initial adoption happening fastest in Japan and South Korea, where a number of operators have already set commercial service dates and selected suppliers.

The US is expected to follow closely behind Japan and South Korea in adoption, although no US operators have made any public announcements regarding 5G trials or pilots so far.

Setting the frequency bands that will be utilised by 5G is the most complex issue operators currently face in terms of barriers to its development, with both the timing of the activation and cost of the spectrum needing to be negotiated.

“It is critical to 5Gs success that the most feasible and appropriate spectrum bands are assigned, not only to support existing high bandwidth and capacity requirements, but also the wide ranging devices and applications contributing towards the Internet of Everything,” said Nitin Bhas, author of the research.