5G networks are going to be a common part of people around the world this decade. In 2022, globally, 5G is still a very new technology for most. Countries such as India haven’t even seen commercial 5G networks launch yet. Currently, there are over 290 million voice over 5G users in the world. According to a Juniper Research report, this number will go up to 2.5 billion by 2026. At the same time, the firm has assessed that the revenue from voice services would go down by 16% over the next four years.
5G Rollout to Take Place Aggressively Over the Next Few Years
While 4G will be a focus for the operators in India and many countries around the globe, 5G will also be rolled out aggressively. As per Juniper Research, the number of 5G voice users will grow by 780%, driven by the 5G rollout across the world. To get the best return on investment as quickly as possible, Juniper Research has recommended that operators should focus on prioritising interactive calling, intelligent call routing, and the integration of AI-based IVR (interactive voice services). Providing interactive calling with 5G would allow the operators to compete with the OTT voice apps. As per Juniper, the operators weren’t able to leverage interactive voice calling over 4G networks because of the lower speed limits. But these limits won’t exist with 5G networks, and thus telcos must leverage it to make returns on investment quickly. What’s worth noting here is that despite the exponential growth in the number of voice over 5G users, the revenue generated by the service would decline by 16% over the next four years. This is because P2P voice traffic is largely expected to shift to third-party voice apps. Juniper, in its report, has urged the operators to work on developing new business-oriented voice services such as interactive calling to be able to earn more from enterprises.
