The impact of 5G on the Telco Industry in 2020
19TH December 2019
With the impending arrival of 5G, 2019 has been a busy year for the Telecommunications industry. Companies left, right, and center have been exploring the impact of the technology on the current market, as well as the costs required to implement it on a wide-scale basis.
There are two main components needed for the implementation of 5G: first, cell towers used to broadcast the signal, and second, fiber optic cables, used to transfer the signals between the various cell towers.
The demand for both of these components is exponentially higher than previously with 4G networks. With the current 4G, a 100km² area requires 25 cell towers at a distance of 1 every 2km; with the proposed 5G, the same area will require 1600% more cell towers which is equivalent to a cell tower every 0.5 km. According to research carried out by Deloitte, the top 25 metro areas in the United States will require 2.25 million kilometers of fiber, costing in total anywhere between 150 and 180 billion dollars of investment.
Looking at the European market, France has been especially active namely with the sale of Bouygues’s fiber service, the sale of Free’s cell towers and most significantly, the acquisition of Covage by SFR, a deal totaling €1 Billion. Xperts Council was active on all three of these acquisitions and helped various funds by providing quality experts within the first couple of days.
