The mobile industry has historically relied on consumers to drive revenue and profitability but many operator executives are looking at new ways to monetise 5G, an Ericsson survey found.

An overwhelming majority (86 per cent) agreed the industry needs to find new revenue-sharing models to make a success of 5G. Similarly, the same figure agreed that operators need industry-specific services to monetise 5G.

61 per cent accepted that operators can’t pay for 5G by raising rates on consumers to pay for additional investment. Respondents accept the consumer market is “tapped out”.

And yet 90 per cent of those surveyed said they are focusing on consumers in their 5G planning.

One message was clear from the survey: the enterprise market is set to become more important for operators.

The executives’ answers give some other clues for how business models might change in the future: 93 per cent think third-party collaboration is key to monetising 5G. And the same figure think the Internet of Thing has a major role in making money from 5G.

Developing bespoke services for industries has been talked about before and raises interesting questions for operators including whether they can realistically appeal to industries across the board or just target particular segments.

Operators open up on 5G progress
Ericsson’s 5G Readiness Survey was based on responses from 50 executives at 29 global operators who had announced their intentions for 5G. These executives were identified as leaders in their company’s 5G efforts.

Of the executives quizzed, around one third (34 per cent) said their 5G efforts were at the development stage, followed by 32 per cent who said they were running trials. A further 22 per cent are at the planning stage. A small minority (4 per cent) said their 5G efforts were just at the ideas stage.

Interestingly, 8 per cent claimed to somehow be in the process of launching commercial services (despite the technology not set to be ratified as a standard until 2018).