Connectivity Technology Blog

GSMA together with some mobile network operators recently published a white paper to promote the use of High Altitude Platform Systems (HAPS) technology to meet the need for broadband connectivity worldwide. We have covered HAPS multiple times in our blog posts. They are unmanned aircrafts that fly typically at altitudes of around 20km.  The description of the paper says: Operating in the stratosphere, unmanned high-altitude platforms (HAPS) could bring connectivity to areas that are either not covered, or are only partially covered, by terrestrial cellular networks. This whitepaper highlights the potential of HAPS to meet the need for more broadband connectivity worldwide. HAPS are very versatile: they can be adjusted to prioritise coverage or capacity depending on the use case. Moreover, an aircraft can be deployed to cover a location at short notice. As HAPS can employ LTE and 5G, there are no special requirements on the user equipment: a normal smartphone can be used. As a res...

GSMA recently released couple of reports on Sub-Saharan Africa. The Mobile Economy Report (including the Infographic above) and  5G: laying the foundations report . The interesting bit was the technology popularity in the region. This can be seen in the picture below. 2019 is the year when 3G overtakes 2G and in 2023, 4G will overtake 2G. What should be remembered here is that in 2025, there will roughly be 1.04 billion connections. So in 2025, nearly 620 million 3G connection, 120 million 2G connections, 230 million 4G connections but only 30 million 5G connections. The 5G report details the number of IoT connections. There will be 332 million connections, 130 million in the consumer segment while 202 million in the enterprise. My guess will be that the majority will still be 2G in 2025, with LTE-M and NB-IoT just starting to become noticable. The final chart that is interesting is the backhaul that is used in different parts of the world. In SSA there is hardly a...