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4G Remains “Good Enough”

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The ongoing Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona is proclaiming that 5G was “unlocking untapped value for all players across the entire ecosystem” and “redefining how the world connects.”

However, Christel Heydemann, boss of the French network Orange begs to differ. According to her, network operators were in peril because “massive network investments of almost 600 billion euros in Europe in the last decade have been hard to monetize.”

Networks are not the only ones who might be rueing their big bet. Ericsson, which supplies the equipment for 5G networks, has just laid off 8,500 people after profits slumped.

“5G has disappointed pretty much everybody – both service providers and consumers,” Dario Talmesio of research firm Omdia says.

Telecom firms are unlikely to invest billions to improve connectivity in factories and ports or help develop hi-tech medical services. Instead, they are saying that even small improvements are world-changing innovations. Yet even now the benefits of 5G remain largely unclear to average smartphone users.

4G just remains good enough for most people.

Read the full analysis HERE.

ripavi saunat

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