The likely success of 5G will be given a significant boost if the operator community is given major assistance in developing the vertical industry use cases, according to Yuen Kuan Moon, Singtel’s CEO of Consumer Singapore.

“There are many verticals that could benefit from 5G-based services, such as transport, public services, healthcare etc, and we want to ensure that Singapore becomes a smart nation by adopting the technology.”

However, the Singtel executive said the company, along with other operators, had not yet recovered their capex investment in LTE “and we want help from equipment vendors to develop the vertical apps the 5G”.

“We will deploy 5G, but we have to see the vertical use cases in operation before we can justify the necessary investment,” Moon said at an Ericsson event during Mobile World Congress.

“We should start now to develop the IoT use case so we can understand the key benefits and how it could transform businesses. Adopting this approach would mean we’ll be ready when 5G becomes deployable.”

Looking to address these concerns, Fredrik Jejdling, head of Ericsson’s Network Service business unit, said: “We need to share use cases among the operator community. For example, the US seems very likely to be first with 5G fixed radio access, and other operators could benefit from this experience.”

From the company’s own market research, Jejdling added that manufacturing, energy and utilities, and public safety would make up around 50 per cent of the addressable market for 5G vertical use cases.