‘Telecom is poised to deliver the true capabilities of 5G,’ new Spirent 5G report says
On the verge of value and game-changing innovation, but not quite there yet—that’s the message from Spirent Communications’ latest assessment of the state of 5G.
“Refined strategies” are “coming into focus,” Spirent CEO Eric Updyke writes in the report forward, adding: “The marquee players are set to deliver real value.”
While 5G Standalone deployments have moved slower than expected, in part due to less monetization of services than the industry had expected, Spirent says that the “lack of visible commercial deployments in the field doesn’t tell the whole story” of 5G SA. “The real action unfolded behind the scenes, where progress toward large-scale SA rollouts continued at a rapid pace and new 5G-Advanced plays kicked off,” according to the Spirent 5G report.
The company said that during 2024, it had engaged with more than 50 CSPs, hyperscalers and NEMs on 5G SA testing, and views “the backroom work commenced in 2024 as setting the scene for operators to deliver strategic 5G plays during 2025 with a focus on quality and ROI. More than 30 of those engagements—which, along with Spirent internal data, form the basis of the report—were with network operators.
Stephen Douglas, head of market strategy for Spirent Communications highlighted four key themes from the Spirent 5G report. Those themes were:
–Testing of the 5G core, in preparation for wider deployments of 5G Standalone. “The big takeaway is the momentum around 5G Standalone and early Advanced,” said Douglas.
In parallel with their testing of 5G cores, Douglas said, operators are also focusing on automation—usually as part of broader efforts to implement things like CI/CD pipelines and increase efficiency. Ultimately, they will end up with more agile networks, but they are not lightweight changes, and it is slow going—which, he said, is contributing to the slow roll-outs of more advanced networks in some markets.
–A focus on customer experience. “Customer experience became a very hot topic last year in many of our markets, but North America and Asia Pacific especially, around Fixed Wireless Access,” Douglas reflected. He said that operators wanted to test end-user experience where shared spectrum was being used with mobility subscribers and how the networks were performing at peak hours in the evenings.
“I think a lot of the operators have been incredibly successful in terms of reaching their initial subscriber targets, and we are hearing behind the scenes [that] these customers are incredibly lucrative,” Douglas shared. “Even though the Fixed Wireless Access subscription may be a good price, the upsell that they’re able to do in the home in terms of say, mobility plans, family plans, etc., is quite lucrative. So obviously, they don’t want to lose them.”
As a result, he continued, operators want to have a better understanding of the in-home experience of FWA customers, and want to improve that experience. He expects to see a couple of things develop during 2025: A wave of in-home CPE with Wi-Fi 7 capabilities, as well as multi-antenna devices to provide better coverage. Douglas also said that operators want to move away, as much as possible, from using outdoor CPE that needs professional installation, to CPEs that can simply be shipped to the end-user for guided self-installation near a window or other optimal location.
–New services being tested. Operators are laying the groundwork for additional 5G services to finally begin to emerge. Spirent has seen significant ramping up of RedCap testing, with a focus on network readiness to be able to cope with large numbers of RedCap devices, Douglas said.
That signals upcoming launches are in the works. However, he added that it’s not clear how much commercial success the first wave of RedCap will have, because much of the interest is around the enhanced RedCap capabiliites that will come still later. But, he added, network operators are telling Spirent that they want to deploy RedCap as quickly as possible in order to clear existing spectrum and refarm it.
Other emerging services being tested? Roaming, particularly for MVNOs and private networks that have their own spectrum but can roam onto the public networks, according to Douglas; and 5G mission-critical communications, both for first-responder networks and in Europe, for railway communications.
–Investment and focus on the IP network. As operators respond to 5G traffic growth and anticipate the needs of 5G SA, they are doing 400G router and switch validation for IP core refreshes, according to the Spirent 5G report. “400G is of high interest given its higher speeds per port while simultaneously decreasing energy consumption and rack space requirements,” the company added. Meanwhile, they are also focusing on 10G, 25G and 100G IP transport to support massive MIMO and “robust performance at edge aggregation sites,” the test company reported.
Douglas also pointed out findings around a growing focus on segment routing to support custom traffic paths, including 5G slides.
While the Spirent 5G report reflected a large amount of testing activity going on behind the scenes, it also was a reminder that for 5G, “halftime means there is still a long way to go,” as Updyke put it in the foreward to the report.
“Despite the preparation and proof points, our industry still faces complexity, fierce competition, and economic uncertainty,” he added. “Winning in 2025 will mean staying resilient, delivering peak performance at scale, and capitalizing on the hard work conducted to date.”
