Almost all companies hope to increase user revenue through 5G investment

The latest survey report from network security vendor Fortinet shows that the telecommunications industry is generally optimistic about 5G and its return on investment, but 5G-based products need to be more secure and more suitable for enterprise use.

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Based on a survey of telecom businesses, the report states that 90% expect the increase in average revenue per user (ARPU) from 5G investments to be evenly split between private and public 5G networks.

Since most private networks will be managed by communications operators themselves, these companies could eventually capture as much as 75% of the entire 5G market.

However, none of this will be achieved unless existing security measures are strengthened. Almost two-thirds (64%) believe both architecture and operations need to be strengthened.

Additionally, business solutions need to be better tailored to specific use cases, which the vast majority consider to be critical or very important.

“It will no longer be enough to offer undifferentiated mobile connectivity services,” the report says. To succeed, the telecom industry needs to form shared-responsibility partnerships with other providers and corporate customers.

“From a fundamental standpoint, the migration of today’s mobile networks to 5G, especially standalone (SA) implementations, brings new security requirements that go far beyond the inherent 5G capabilities defined by 3GPP,” said Ronen Shpirer, director of solutions marketing at Fortinet. “The virtualized, distributed, and dynamic nature of the 5G core, coupled with the massive increase in scalability, increasing utilization of multi-access edge computing (MEC), and overall critical use cases, requires strong security for both infrastructure and business use cases.”