A Juniper Research study forecasts that the number of 5G roamers will exceed 200 million by 2026.
Although many activities slowed during the pandemic, 5G deployment continued steadily. With global travel gradually recovering, mobile operators are accelerating their rollouts and expanding roaming support to meet growing demand.
Juniper’s analysts project that global 5G roamers will rise from about 4.5 million in 2021 to roughly 210 million by 2026. As international travel returns, operators should prioritize expanding 5G roaming capabilities to handle this surge.
Scarlett Woodford, author of the research report 5G Roaming Strategies: Future Outlook, Opportunities & Market Forecasts 2021-2026, emphasizes the importance of preparing for this change:
“As demand for international travel returns, operators must adjust to the significant uptake of 5G subscriptions during the pandemic. A failure to provide 5G roaming capabilities in key travel destinations will diminish brand reputation amongst subscribers and lead to churn to competitors.”
Roaming vendors are encouraged to develop and offer 5G-enabled roaming features such as roaming analytics, sponsored roaming, and steering of roaming. These services will help operators optimize revenue and customer satisfaction across borders.
High-bandwidth applications like 4K video streaming are among the top drivers of 5G data usage. Juniper predicts roaming 5G data traffic will grow from 2.6 petabytes in 2021 to around 770 petabytes by 2026. To illustrate, that volume of data would be sufficient to stream approximately 115 million hours of 4K video on platforms similar to major streaming services.
Consumers will expect roaming performance comparable to their home networks. Delivering that consistent cross-border experience will require new types of roaming agreements and technical arrangements that specifically address 5G capabilities and quality of service.
The pandemic underscored the importance of reliable connectivity. Some pandemic-driven changes—such as increased remote and flexible work—are likely to persist, presenting operators with long-term opportunities. Forward-looking providers will explore ways to monetize these trends and design roaming solutions that support evolving consumer and enterprise needs.
(Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash)
Find out more about Digital Transformation Week North America, a virtual event on November 9–10, 2021, focused on advanced digital transformation strategies for a ‘digital everything’ world.