Based on the analysis and takeaways from 415 new 5G engagements worldwide in 2024, Spirent Communications published its sixth annual 5G Outlook Report. Now that the 5G era is halfway over, the most recent Spirent report examines the advancements made in the first five years of 5G and identifies some of the most important strategies being given priority in order to increase prospects and revenue in the second half of 5G’s deployment.
Spirent worked with more than 50 service providers (CSPs), network equipment manufacturers (NEMs), and hyperscalers on 5G SA and 5G-Advanced testing in 2024. Key drivers spanned performance, security, resilience, lifecycle management, customer experience and service-based testing, serving as encouraging indicators of accelerated deployments in 2025.
The Report’s Pivotal Highlights Include:
5G-Advanced testing and 5G SA are positive signs of acceleration in 2025. The priorities for upcoming 5G networks are highlighted by the testing activities conducted in 2024 by international telecom stakeholders.
Thirty of Spirent’s more than fifty distinct 5G SA customer engagements were with network operators, and many of them are anticipated to go commercially active over the next 12 to 18 months.
5G Cloud-Native Core is the impetus for automation and lifecycle management projects. Demand grew for automated continuous testing (CT) linked into Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipeline procedures which is crucial for seamless lifecycle management and agile lab-to-live delivery.
5G SA commercial deployments are increasingly focusing on 5G security and resilience. Validating the security and resilience of cloud-native functions (CNFs) has become more important to customers. This gave service providers more assurance that 5G SA would be able to ensure service continuity and manage intricate, real-world demands.
The customer experience is essential for increasing revenue. For important service offerings such as 5G FWA, in-home Wi-Fi, Voice over New Radio (VoNR), gaming, and multi-access edge computing (MEC), Spirent observed a rise in demand for quality of experience (QoE) testing and competitive benchmarking.
5G services offer opportunities to monetization. Validating advanced capabilities and use cases, such as 5G roaming, Mission Critical Push-to-Talk (MCPTT) services, time-sensitive networking (TSN) in private networks, 5G reduced-capability (5G RedCap) for IoT, and security slices, was given more importance.
Long-term success is based on IP-Transport Networks. As operators get ready for differentiated 5G solutions and the effect and monetization opportunity AI offers to their network, there is an increasing focus on IP-core upgrades to 400G, increased capacities to edge locations, and the introduction of Segment Routing (SRv6).
As operators prepare to introduce new consumer and enterprise private network options, 5G SA device and handset service experience testing engagements brought to light the heightened emphasis on the performance and experience of new services centered around immersive voice, video, and video-chat.
Emerging and future star players that are expected to have an impact on the second half of the 5G era are noted in the report. These include 5G FWA expansion towards enterprises and urban markets; 5G low-altitude economy and non-terrestrial networks (NTNs); the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in telecommunications networks; video aided by AR and AI; and 6G early focus and projected timelines.
Leadership Comments
“Early revenue expectations for 5G were tempered following deployment and availability challenges during the first half of the 5G era,” says Spirent’s Head of Market Strategy, Steve Douglas. “But as 5G Standalone (SA) deployments continue to grow and 5G-Advanced starts to take off, telecom is poised to deliver the true capabilities of 5G that meet industry needs.Notable early successes like 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) underscore long-term opportunity, and entering the second half of the 5G era, there’s everything to play for as 5G services present a pathway to monetization with a range of other technologies combining to comprise a strong foundation for sustainable growth.”
To Download the It’s Halftime for 5G: Progress, Key Plays and Future Prospects Report, CLICK HERE
