Over a billion people will be covered by 5G by the end of the year

By Joe Wituschek
published

iPhone 12 5g Speed Test
iPhone 12 5g Speed Test (Image credit: iMore)

5g Iphone

5g Iphone (Image credit: Apple)

What you need to know

  • 5G is expected to cover over a billion people by the end of 2020.
  • Subscriptions for 5G is expected to top 2.8 billion by 2025.

Reported by CNET, 5G is rolling out faster than 4G or 3G before it. In fact, a report from Ericcson says that 5G coverage may reach over a billion people by the end of 2020.

According to the report, 5G is expected to cover 60% of the global population by 2026.

The world may be grappling with a widespread pandemic, but that's sure not slowing down 5G's rollout. The super-fast technology reached more customers this year than expected and will cover about 60% of the global population by 2026, according to a new report from Ericsson. That makes 5G the fastest deployed mobile network ever, the Swedish networking giant said.

Ericsson believes that there will be 218 million 5G subscriptions worldwide by the end of 2020 which Patrick Cerwall, head of strategic marketing insights at Ericsson, says will drive to upwards of 2.8 billion by 2025.

"5G coverage will be built out to the extent that 1 billion people will live in 5G coverage areas by the end of 2020 worldwide ... That's around 15% of the world's population." By 2026, that will soar to 3.5 billion 5G subscriptions. In June, Ericsson estimated there would be 2.8 billion 5G subscriptions by 2025.

While the 5G rollout was dampened by the pandemic, the launch of the iPhone 12 lineup brought 5G into the mainstream and propelled adoption for many new customers to the technology.

2020 was supposed to be the year 5G went mainstream. But the spread of the novel coronavirus caused doubts about how widely the technology would be used this year. Instead of slowing down 5G, the pandemic in some ways made it easier for carriers to expand their networks faster. In China, the government made 5G's rollout a priority, and Apple's entry into the 5G market with its iPhone 12 lineup is expected to boost the number of 5G phone users.

Apple has brought 5G to the iPhone for the first time with the iPhone 12 lineup. The phones support both sub-6GHz 5G and mmWave for models in the United States.

Joe Wituschek
Joe Wituschek
Contributor

Joe Wituschek is a Contributor at iMore. With over ten years in the technology industry, one of them being at Apple, Joe now covers the company for the website. In addition to covering breaking news, Joe also writes editorials and reviews for a range of products. He fell in love with Apple products when he got an iPod nano for Christmas almost twenty years ago. Despite being considered a "heavy" user, he has always preferred the consumer-focused products like the MacBook Air, iPad mini, and iPhone 13 mini. He will fight to the death to keep a mini iPhone in the lineup. In his free time, Joe enjoys video games, movies, photography, running, and basically everything outdoors.

4 Comments
  • I upgrade my Verizon plan to include 5G, and upgrade my iPhone to the 12 Pro Max, but still no 5G in my area. And Verizon has no clue when we'll get it here. I doubt by the end of 2020!
  • Yeah it's unlikely if it's not in your area with them yet unfortunately
  • One of my first actions after setting up my 12 Pro Max was turning off 5G and defaulting to LTE for voice and data. I live near a major city, but there are still stretches where I get no service of any kind so thinking that I'm going to get or notice 5G is a joke.
  • The iPhone 12 series will automatically switch back to use LTE or lower if 5G is unavailable so there's not really any harm keeping it on if your plan supports it!