Analysys Mason: 5G is not at the top of the agenda for IoT business units

The industry’s focus on 5G was inescapable at MWC 2018 with a deluge of announcements on network trials, deployments and device readiness. In contrast, and perhaps reassuringly, 5G was not high on the agenda in our meetings with operator IoT business units; their focus remained firmly on the more immediate opportunities and challenges with making money from of NB-IoT and LTE-M networks. As we have written previously, while most conference presentations about 5G mention IoT, the reverse is rarely true; few IoT presentations mention 5G. IoT companies are working on nearer-term issues than 5G. This trend continued at MWC. In almost all operator presentations on IoT, the migration to 5G was largely absent.