One curious context for 5G introduction in at least some markets is that it has occurred in the context of unprecedented conditions created by the Covid-19 pandemic. A mobile network billed as providing “much faster speeds and bandwidth” is introduced precisely at a point when workers were forced to work from home and students forced to learn at home, are not as mobile as they once were, and so arguably derive less benefit from 5G speed advantages.
That has implications for network connectivity demand, as people at home--workers or students--will routinely connect to Wi-Fi rather than using the mobile network.
In other words, just as we are introducing a “much faster mobile network,” people have less need to be out and about where mobile phones provide their greatest value.
What remains to be seen is what happens when the pandemic has ended. Many observers expect permanent changes in workforce deployment, with employees spending much more time working remotely, even when some amount of in-the-office work occurs.
Others now speculate that fewer days of work per week also could happen, with possible four-day workweeks becoming more common.
All of those trends could reduce demand for mobile connectivity overall and reduce it at some locations such as urban cores and commuting routes. Conversely, more mobile network demand could happen in suburban locations as workers spend more time closer to home.
And, of course, some amount of former mobile traffic will shift to the fixed network (using Wi-Fi).
Less mission-critical mobility might have other repercussions. If mobiles do not have to be used as often “out and about,” perhaps a “faster network,” while providing advantages, does not supply as much value as if users were out and about--away from home--more often.
The one exception might obviously be business travel, when the faster speeds are likely to be more important. But business travel remains at depressed levels, for most of us. And even after the pandemic, many question whether former levels will be matched soon. Some believe there will be a permanent downward shift in business travel.
One bit of anecdotal evidence is my own behavior working from home (which, in fact, I have done for the better part of 30 years). Most of my mobile device connectivity now is on Wi-Fi.
So relatively rarely do I move about outside the home, and infrequently enough, that I often leave my mobile radios turned off, knowing that I can survive a few minutes of driving with no connection before Wi-Fi kicks in at the location I am going to.
Once 5G really does offer speeds up to 10 times faster than 4G, and when I am on business travel, 5G will supply lots of value.
Day to day, working locally, the value will be low, as I have Wi-Fi fast enough to handle my untethered device use cases, or use a direct Ethernet connection for the PC.
With the caveat that the online poll was not intended to be representative of all users, a survey by GSMArena suggests a certain amount of decoupling of demand for devices and networks, where 5G phones are used only on 4G networks, which is sort of the same point: devices are, to some extent, more decoupled from mobile network support than they used to be.
Some 34 percent of respondents who use 5G phones say they do not use 5G because it is not yet available. And, with the caveat that behavior is likely to change once 5G is widely available, the poll still shows that demand for phones--and phone features--is to some extent possibly disconnected from the attributes of the network the device will use.
Some popular consumer devices are designed to be used independently from any mobile network, using Wi-Fi or Ethernet for connectivity, others are designed to use both 4G and 5G, with a default to 4G when 5G is not available.
But smartphones are only partly utilitarian devices. They also are fashion. Image and personas. So some 5G phone users have purchased 5G devices even in advance of 5G networks being available, which is a new behavior enabled by handset suppliers emphasizing device features other than 5G.
The larger question is whether substantial percentages of 5G device owners continue to behave this way--owning 5G devices that do not connect to a 5G network--over the longer term.
The same question might be asked for customers who do not yet think they “need 5G” or do not buy because it “costs more.” Over time, those objections should cease to be relevant.
Still, the perceived value of 5G and faster speeds could shift if remote work becomes a permanent fixture and more people are able to rely on Wi-Fi for connectivity much of the time.
Phone features and fashion demands will still exist, though, so some buyers might find they have appetite for 5G-capable devices even when they are not so convinced they need 5G services as much as they might once have thought they did.
Value and price packages might eventually evolve to reflect that decoupling.
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