Ericsson Reveals 5G Technology Has an Important Role in the Future Development of the Metaverse

Swedish telecommunications company, Ericsson. (Photo; Doc. Ericsson)

JAKARTA – Ericsson, a multinational telecommunications company and 5G infrastructure provider from Sweden recently discussed the importance of 5G telecommunications networks for the metaverse. Ericsson also discussed the impact of this powerful data transmission technology in his study.

According to Ericsson's survey of 49,000 consumers in 37 countries, 5G network users are more interested in metaverse immersive technology. This is because they have spent an hour more per week on Metaverse-related platforms and services than when using 4G networks.

Data from the research also reveals that 5G technology is predicted to reach more consumers around 510 million users by 2022. This increase in consumers is considered to be able to affect the adoption of the metaverse which will experience significant growth along with the increase in 5G users.

At a global level, six in ten 5G adopters believe this technology is “essential” for the metaverse to reach its full realization. Operators could benefit from bundling their own metaverse apps with 5G plans, according to the study.

Responding to the growing use of the 5G network, Telefonica, the Spanish operator, and NTT Docomo, the Japanese operator, have already taken steps to be able to offer a metaverse experience to their users in the future.

Based on a survey by telecom giant Ericsson, 5G data users believe in one thing according to the study: “Metaverse will definitely migrate to other, more immersive platforms in the future. The survey found that half of 5G subscribers who are already using Metaverse and Extended Reality (XR) apps believe the service will migrate to XR headsets within the next two years.

The results of the study surprised the company. Commenting on this, the head of Ericsson's Consumerlab, Jasmeet Singh Sethi, stated that he was interested in finding data where 5G users could trigger metaverse adoption.

“It is interesting to note that 5G is emerging as an important enabler for early adopters to embrace metaverse-related services, such as socializing, playing, and buying digital items in interactive 3D virtual gaming platforms. The amount of time spent on augmented reality applications by 5G users has also doubled over the past two years,” said Sethi.