More than half the communications services providers surveyed for this report expect to have 5G backhaul ready by 2020, even though they still do not know which vendors they plan to use for this step.

Denise Culver, Online Research Director

July 6, 2018

3 Min Read
5G Backhaul Vendors Have Opportunity, Work to Do

Vendors of 5G backhaul will interpret the information provided by communication service providers (CSPs) on this month's Thought Leadership Council (TLC) in one of two ways: either as doors of opportunity being thrown wide open or slammed shut.

So what's the delineation?

It really comes down to what vendors choose to do when they realize that network operators are very close to deploying backhaul systems to support their 5G plans, yet they haven't made final decisions about which vendors they're going to work with to deploy those networks. Because that's exactly what CSPs are saying in the latest TLC report, 5G Focus Group: CSPs Ready 5G Backhaul Sans Clear Vendor Relationships.

In fact, the 17 council members that participated in this month's forum couldn't even come to a real consensus about the vendors they believe are most critical for 5G backhaul. Seven council members each considered Nokia and Ericsson as critical vendors for 5G backhaul, followed by Cisco, which was seen as a critical supplier by six council members. Juniper was considered a critical supplier by five CSPs and Huawei by four.

Ten additional vendors were mentioned in the report in varying degrees of importance to 5G backhaul deployment by council members, ranging from somewhat important to unknown. Unfortunately, the majority of vendors were ranked as unknown by the vast majority of council members.

Hopefully, this information won't equate to a bunch of vendors slamming doors on this opportunity, either out of frustration or, worse, because they believe their existing customer relationships are so well defined that they can't possibly be one of the vendors described in this report.

Because the truth is that even the vendors that scored higher than others have work to do. The information provided by these CSPs shows there is a lot of opportunity for all 5G backhaul vendors to get in front of CSPs and hawk their wares, especially in terms of value proposition.

Because that is another important message that this month's council had for vendors: About half that are looking for new vendors are doing so out of a need for competitive pricing. The second biggest driver for looking at new vendors is the need to find technology options that existing vendors don't provide.

Join Light Reading in investigating the transport and networking requirements of 5G as US operators move towards commercial launch. Register today for 5G Transport & Networking Strategies in New York on October 9. Register now for this exclusive opportunity to learn from and network with industry experts – communications service providers get in free!

This month's focus group was asked ten questions to ascertain deployment plans, assess vendors, budgets and obstacles for 5G backhaul. The results clearly indicate that CSPs have a good grasp of, and are well on their way toward deploying, 5G backhaul despite not having made firm choices of the vendors they'll use for those deployments.

TLC is a Heavy Reading research initiative that consists of panels of CSP experts focused on key areas of telecom development, including service assurance, SD-WAN, automation, 5G and IoT. Members participate in Q&A forums several times a year, and all information disclosed by Council members remains anonymous.

— Denise Culver, Director of Online Research, Heavy Reading

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About the Author(s)

Denise Culver

Online Research Director

Denise manages Heavy Reading's Thought Leadership Council, which uses a focus group approach to glean insights from CSPs on topics ranging from automation, IoT, 5G, B/OSS transformation, SD-WAN and emerging technologies. Additionally, Denise covers the test and measurement industry as an analyst, focusing on how T&M vendors are addressing telco transformation, as well as the impact that technologies such as IoT are having on service provider networks. Denise also continues to oversee development of Light Reading's Pedia projects, including Virtuapedia and Testapedia. Previously, she was a Contributing Analyst with Heavy Reading for seven years, covering a wide range of areas, including mobile, IP transformation and T&M. Her career in technology journalism began in 1996, and she is a past winner of the American Business Media Association's Jesse Neal Award for editorial achievement. She is a graduate of Texas A&M University.

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