5G will pass 10 percent of all mobile connections in the world by 2023, according to Cisco's latest projections. The roll-out of faster 5G networks should help global mobile connection speeds more than triple over the five-year forecast period, from 13 Mbps in 2018 to 44 Mbps in 2023, the company's Annual Internet Report said.
The average 5G speed is expected to reach 575 Mbps by the same year, or 13 times faster than the average mobile connection, Cisco expects. That compares to an expected global average of 92 Mbps over Wi-Fi networks and 110 Mbps over fixed broadband in 2023.
The Cisco Annual Internet Report covers mobile, Wi-Fi and fixed broadband networking with quantitative projections on the growth of users, devices and connections as well as network performance and relevant trends. The report's 5G user forecast is similar to other market researchers, which have suggested 5G should reach over 1 billion users within its first five years.
According to Cisco's forecasts, over 70 percent of the global population (5.7 billion people) will have mobile connectivity (2G, 3G, 4G or 5G) by 2023. Still, only two-thirds of the population will be internet users. Connected devices will number much higher, at an average 3.6 per person and nearly 10 devices and connections per household. M2M will represent about half (14.7 billion) of total global devices and connections.
Mobile is expected to grow its share of networked devices to 45 percent in 2025. This includes both cellular networks (2G, 3G, 4G, 5G) and the new low-power, wide-area wireless networks. The latter are expected to account for 14.4 percent of mobile connections in 2023, up from an estimated 2.5 percent in 2018.
