Telecommunications Western Europe is catching up internationally with 5G mobile communications

One in four mobile phone contracts in Western Europe now includes the option of using the faster 5G network. With a market penetration of 26%, Western European mobile network providers are only in fourth place in an international comparison.

According to an analysis by mobile communications equipment provider Ericsson, North America (59%) is in the lead ahead of North East Asia (41%) and the Gulf Cooperation Council region (34%). According to the study, the number of 5G mobile contracts is increasing in all regions worldwide and will reach 1.7 billion by the end of the first quarter of 2024.

However, the Ericsson Mobility Report published in Stockholm on Wednesday predicts a neck-and-neck race and a change in the top positions in the future. By 2029, the study expects Western Europe to catch up to third place in 5G usage, with 86 percent of all contracts, directly behind North America (90 percent) and the Gulf Cooperation Council region (89 percent). North East Asia is in danger of falling behind with 80%.

Significantly higher data transmission rates

The fifth generation of mobile communications (5G) offers significantly higher data transmission rates than the previous UMTS (3G) and LTE (4G) standards. In addition, the delay time (latency) is reduced, which makes 5G usable for real-time applications such as remote machine control or telemedicine applications. 5G technology is also better suited than 3G or 4G for bringing large crowds online, such as visitors to a large football stadium.

According to Ericsson, the boom in 5G use in Western Europe is being held back by a technical shortcoming. Although the frequencies below 1 gigahertz, which have been frequently used to date, enable large-scale coverage, they cannot keep up with the frequencies in the medium spectrum around 3.5 GHz in terms of capacity and speed.

This reduces the user experience, as too much time elapses between the user's "click" and the time when a video is played or a website is loaded.

Ericsson has made technical progress with smartphones. The end devices increasingly support 5G Standalone, the fully-fledged version of 5G.

Smartphones from Android 13 and Apple iPhones from iOS 17 also support network slicing. This technology virtually divides a physical network into different parts (slices) in order to prioritize certain services such as the transmission of videos on the network.