Without true use cases, 5G still a long ways off, says research

LONDON – “Real” 5G is still at least four years away as service providers struggle to find convincing use cases, says a new report from IHS Markit.The 5G Development Market Report predicts that 5G will come in two waves: first, sub-6GHz in 2017, followed by the “real” 5G at higher spectrum bands - millimeter wave (mmWave) - in 2020.Noting that 5G means different things to different stakeholders, the report examines the split between two schools of thought. It defines ‘Evolutionary 5G’ as an extension of current Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced networks that is backward compatible with all 3GPP...