Ericsson says Broadband IoT will Overtake Legacy 2G and 3G Networks

On June 17, Ericsson company revealed their Mobility Report for June, which reflected the next phase of 5G in the United States and abroad. It also provided insights on the 5G spectrum, Artificial Intelligence, wireless WAN, and the future of IoT connectivity. By the end of 2021, the traffic of IoT on the 4G and 5G network broadband will exceed the IoT traffic of legacy 3G and 2G networks, as per Ericsson. All the terminology can seem complex, but the latest mobility report from the Swedish company is gathering quickly around the new cellular technologies, including Cat-M LPWA and NB-IoT or narrowband IoT variants.

The traffic of IoT on the old-generation 2G and 3G networks are from a pre-IoT M2M era which is now matched by the growth of 4G and upcoming 5G. Now the hardware prices have decreased, the apps creation numbers have got multiplied, and the cases of businesses have become transparent. Integrated with the immense growth for competitor technologies of non-cellular LPWA, such as Sigfox and LoRaWAN, the future of the massive internet of things looks much closer.

Ericsson forecasts that over 26.4 billion connections of IoT will be there by the year 2026, greater than its six months earlier 24.6 billion predictions. Ericsson has escalated its forecast of five years and moved into an interim of six months for short-range IoT connections and cellular internet of things connections in compliance with the rates of growth from six months earlier. The cellular IoT is having an estimation of 5.4 billion by 2026, and the short-range IoT will be having 20.6 billion by 2026.

It said the massive IoT connection on narrowband IoT and CAT-M operating with 120 and 55 service providers, respectively, with over 40 operators on both technologies, would rise by 80 percent by 2021 to attain around 330 million. Narrowband IoT and CAT-M are geared for less costly tracking and handling use cases. Cellular IoT connections will make up to 46 percent by 2026 and around 2.48 billion from the total of 5.4 billion.

By the year 2026, around 44 percent of connections of cellular IoT will be regarded as broadband IoT in the terminology of Ericsson, on 4G or 5G infrastructures. The remaining around 10% will remain on the 2G or 3G old generation networks. 5G will maximize to more IoT devices in the 2021 second half, along with VR headsets, cameras, UAVs, or drones. In 2022, deployment of the first commercial devices will hold up time-critical communications, said Ericsson.

The company revised its 2020 estimation of connections of cellular IoT, changing from 1.7 billion up to 1.6 billion, and adjusted it accordingly due to the not active China’s cellular IoT connections. Ericsson said in 2020, IoT devices on 5G got limited to only supporting 5G NSA or non-standalone architecture. In contrast, the IoT devices with 5G standalone capable modules become more available to several business persons in 2021. The company said that they are expecting the growth of 5G will maximize its reach towards more types of IoT device at the time of 2021 second-half, like cameras, VRs, and UAVs.

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