Businesses now face a strategic choice about 5G: remain with the status quo or push for transformative change. With roughly a decade before 6G begins to deliver tangible industrial benefits, now is the time to invest in 5G capabilities and establish the foundational work. Not only will these efforts position an organization to better adopt 6G when it arrives, but they also enable the advantages of distributed infrastructure today.
Has 5G failed?
It’s easy to say 5G hasn’t met expectations, especially from a Western perspective, but that view can be misleading. While adoption and use-case proliferation have lagged in parts of Europe and North America, other countries tell a different story. Markets such as China, Japan, and Singapore have largely had the opportunity to build anew—replacing older technologies with 5G platforms and realizing strong results. In many Western markets the focus has been on upgrading existing networks, and meaningful progress has been made, even if it looks different.
A key problem is that telecommunications providers have struggled to capture the full value of 5G because enterprises and users often don’t leverage the right parts of the digital infrastructure. Consumers may notice marginally faster downloads and streaming, but the deeper promise of 5G—distributed processing, localised services, and richer backend capabilities—has not been realized at scale. At the enterprise level, many organizations still prioritize Wi‑Fi, and both infrastructure and endpoint devices are frequently not optimized for full 5G use. This creates a dual challenge: modernizing both hardware and workforce skills. The central question becomes: should your organization chase the 5G opportunity now?
Getting ahead of the game
Of all generational shifts—2G through 5G—the jump from 4G to 5G is the most significant and the most complex. My recommendation is to start investing in 5G capabilities now to clear potential roadblocks and unlock immediate benefits. A major advantage of 5G is its support for distributed infrastructure, which reduces total reliance on a single telco-controlled core. By pushing workloads toward the network edge—closer to the radio and the user—organizations can gain resiliency, lower latency, and more localized control.
Looking toward 6G, automation—principally driven by AI—will magnify these advantages. Beyond changes in radio frequency, the real business impact between 5G and 6G will come from automated decision-making: optimal path selection, dynamic application relocation, and similar capabilities that rely on a distributed, intelligent network fabric.
Integrating 5G securely
A practical starting point for any enterprise is to inventory which applications and devices already use cellular connectivity. From billboards and vending machines to transportation systems, many assets contain SIMs that are often overlooked. Knowing the scope is vital.
Next, assess existing technology stacks for 5G compatibility. Many organizations must invest to upgrade infrastructure, but equally important is ensuring staff have the right skills to exploit 5G. To address both technology and knowledge gaps, launch a small, isolated pilot that leverages 5G internally. A focused project lets IT teams experiment, surface issues, and build operational experience before broader rollout. These learnings create a foundation to scale solutions with greater confidence.
One practical pilot is deploying a private 5G network in a factory environment where Wi‑Fi struggles—such as warehouse aisles cluttered with stocked products that interfere with coverage. Instead of adding dense Wi‑Fi access points every few meters, a private 5G solution can reduce complexity and long-term costs. Isolating the pilot in a single facility allows IT teams to demonstrate measurable benefits and present results to executive leaders to secure further investment.
Security must be an early priority. To gain 5G’s advantages without enlarging the attack surface, begin by isolating and segmenting the new 5G deployment from legacy systems. This separation lets teams experiment without risking critical operations or creating exploitable gaps. Once a solution is validated, organizations should adopt a unified zero-trust approach to manage, secure, and monitor both legacy and new infrastructure. Centralized zero-trust controls prevent routable access between older systems and new 5G components while providing visibility and governance.
Innovation vs. stagnation
Ignoring 5G and waiting for 6G may create a steep and costly path to competitiveness later. Short-term savings from deferring investment can lead to higher long-term costs: the need to rip out entire infrastructures, manage multiple legacy stacks, and juggle disparate administration and security tools. Early adoption of 5G foundations helps avoid this fragmentation.
By building scalable, adaptable infrastructure now and unifying security under a single overseer, businesses can evolve as technologies mature instead of repeatedly rebuilding. The result is a flexible environment that supports ongoing innovation, reduces operational complexity, and positions organizations to extract value from both current 5G capabilities and the future promise of 6G.