A new report from the GSMA has noted that unlocking spectrum for the mobile industry to deliver innovative 5G services across different industry sectors could add $565 billion to global GDP and $152 billion in tax revenue from 2020 to 20341.
The report, ‘Socio-Economic Benefits of 5G Services Provided in mmWave Bands’, which was launched yesterday, noted that next-generation 5G services will improve access to healthcare, education and mobility whilst reducing pollution and increasing safety.
These outcomes, however, depend largely on the government support for the identification of sufficient millimetre wave (mmWave) spectrum for the mobile industry at the next ITU World Radiocommunication Conference in 2019 (WRC-19).
Cmmenting on the report, Brett Tarnutzer, Head of Spectrum, GSMA posited that the global mobile ecosystem knows how to make spectrum work to deliver a better future, adding that mobile operators have a history of maximising the impact of spectrum resources and no one else has done more to transform spectrum allocations into services that are changing people’s lives.
“Planning spectrum is essential to enable the highest 5G performance and government backing for mmWave mobile spectrum at WRC-19 will unlock the greatest value from 5G deployments for their citizens,” he said.
More than 5 billion people already rely on the mobile ecosystem to deliver services that are integral to their daily lives and fundamental to the economic sustainability of the communities they live in. 5G can offer more benefits and a whole new range of services to even more people, but this will not be possible without access to this vital spectrum.
The ‘Socio-Economic Benefits of 5G Services Provided in mmWave Bands’report looks at the impact of mmWave spectrum on the overall contribution of 5G networks to society. It believes mmWave spectrum will carry the highest capacity 5G services, stressing that it has the ideal characteristics to support very high data transfer rates and ultra-reliable, low latency capabilities, which will support new use cases and deliver the benefits of 5G to consumers and businesses around the world.