Today 5G deployments are relatively limited in coverage scope, although that will rapidly change as the telecom industry enters a multi-year investment supercycle. The early focus will be on delivering enhanced mobile broadband but, as standards continue to progress, that will expand to include massive support for the internet of things and ultra-reliable low latency communications.
As this seachange unfolds, the importance of creating open, multi-vendor network environments is highlighted–delivering on the promise of 5G will require interoperability between best-in-breed products, as well as swapping out proprietary, single-purpose boxes for general purpose hardware capable of dynamically spinning up the needed virtual network function.
