THE adoption of 5G is shaping up to be a bit of a conundrum in East Asia, especially in Asean, as implementation is still looking like a mixed bag when seen from the angle of respective countries.
A report from November 2022 by Capacity Media reveals that while 5G enactment has forged ahead in manufacturing-heavy countries such as China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, the push in many other parts of the region have not been as enthusiastic.
The study note quotes Julber Osio, a research analyst for telecommunication and technology at S&P Global Market Intelligence, as saying that one of the primary reasons for this when contrasted with Europe is because the European Commission has been instrumental in coordinating 5G launches among European markets, while no centralised initiative existed for the Asia-Pacific.
While a recent surge in mobile data consumption has further boosted 4G penetration, Osio is of the opinion that 5G in the Asia-Pacific is still in its infancy stage, particularly among retail consumers or the non-business segment.
As such, he says: “Users are in no hurry to make the switch to 5G since they see the technology as just a faster version of 4G.”
In addition, the cost of 5G devices also plays a major factor, he says, because existing 4G handsets may not support the spectrum frequency bands 5G uses, and many consumers in the region find new 5G-capable handsets to be expensive.
Osio says buying them is “a friction to faster adoption of consumer 5G”, before noting that this is the reason operators are focusing on enterprise 5G compared to consumer 5G, as the former seems to provide more monetisation opportunities.
Delving further into the topic of monetisation, Capacity Media also quotes director for information and communication technologies research at Frost & Sullivan Quah Mei Lee as saying that 5G monetisation has been the telecommunication industry’s biggest bottleneck and is contributing to delays in the implementation of 5G technology.
Quah has attributed the hold-up partly to the lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, but says it was mostly because the applications that will thrive on these emerging technologies implemented with 5G have not yet arrived in numbers that can make a difference.
Meanwhile, bringing the focus closer to Asean itself, Singapore is on top among its regional peers in terms of 5G speeds for downloads, according to a study conducted last year by network intelligence firm Ookla.
The company, which runs the web service Speedtest.net, charts Singapore’s 5G download speed at 246 megabytes per second (Mbps), just ahead of Thailand at 207 Mbps, for the first quarter of 2022.
However, the positions were reversed for uploads, with Thailand being the quickest at 30 Mbps and Singapore coming second at 26 Mbps.
The northern neighbour is evidently looking to establish itself as a key 5G player in the region, as it has also attained top spot for 5G availability in the region, which measures how often are 5G devices plugged into 5G networks.
Ookla charts 5G availability at 24.6% for the period in study – which means an average 5G handset user in Thailand is connected to a 5G network 24.6% of the time.
Singapore came third with 8.9%, and sandwiched between those two are the Philippines whose 5G handsets have access to the high-speed network 18.1% of the time.
The intelligence outfit reports that Thailand was one of the first markets to launch 5G in the Asia-Pacific region, with AIS and TrueMove H both launching commercial 5G services in the first quarter of 2021, shortly after the conclusion of the country’s 5G auction.
Leading 5G market
It concluded that Thailand’s regulator, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Com-mission, has been instrumental in establishing the country as the region’s leading 5G market.
Concurrently, Ookla says that Singapore’s telecommunications regulator, the Infocomm Media Development Authority, is aiming for nationwide 5G coverage for the city-state by 2025, with major player Singapore Telecommunications Ltd already spreading its indoor 5G coverage across 300 locations across the country.
In total, Ookla estimates this has brought both indoor and outdoor coverage to about 75% of Singapore.
On Indonesia, a report by Network World from 2022 commented that the archipelago does not yet possess key 5G spectrum bands like the 3.5 GHz band, which is used there for fixed-satellite system applications, which is why Indonesia uses the more limited 2.3 GHz and mmWave spectrum instead for 5G services.
This is despite the fact that Indonesia has some 100,000 5G towers for utilisation, according to some studies.
Lack of spectrum
All mobile operators in Indonesia have launched 5G, starting with Telkomsel in May 2021 using 20 MHz of that 2.3 GHz spectrum. While competitors soon followed suit, their ability to provide coverage was curbed by the lack of spectrum.
According to data by market research analytics firm YouGov, Indonesians are willing to pay more for 5G than consumers in other countries and, by late 2021, about a third of Indonesians already had 5G-capable phones.
Furthermore, of note is a study conducted by S&P Global Market Intelligence last year that showed telcos in Asean will probably increase tower sales to pay for 5G upgrades and make further technology investments, with the sector having seen a spate of merger and acquisition activities among operators in recent times.
Capacity Media quotes S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Osio as saying: “In other markets, like mainland China, most towers have already been consolidated into a single tower company, such as China Tower, while in Japan and South Korea, towers are owned and operated by mobile operators themselves.
“This isn’t the case in South-East Asia, where mobile operators and tower companies compete for towers.”
On top of that, given the economic environment, he says a more sensible strategy would be to streamline operations by allowing tower companies to build infrastructure, while mobile operators can focus on their core competencies of providing connectivity.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Get 20% OFF The Star Digital Access
Cancel anytime. Ad-free. Unlimited access with perks.
