While 2024 didn’t quite deliver what I wanted for 5G on multiple levels, I think the year set the stage for major changes in 2025. AI obviously took hold in a lot of ways, as did low earth orbit satellite connectivity, network slicing and new devices. While 2024 was a challenging year for many 5G companies, including some infrastructure vendors, it did seem to be a foundational year for future growth, especially with 5G-Advanced and even 6G. Although it should be said that talk of 6G feels premature when we’re still not really living in the 5G world we were promised due to the lack of 5G Standalone networks globally.
Satellite And Non-Terrestrial Networks
Once the 3GPP governing body ratified Release 17 of its wireless telephony spec in 2022, it was quite clear that satellite connectivity was going to have a major role in 5G. While satellite is still very much in its infancy, there’s no denying that the momentum is there, with companies like SpaceX and AST SpaceMobile partnering with T-Mobile and other operators. T-Mobile’s direct-to-cell service is expected to launch in beta in early 2025 and will compete with offerings from companies including Apple, which has partnered with Globalstar. Other carriers including AT&T, Vodafone and Verizon have signed deals with AST SpaceMobile, and Vodafone has recently demonstrated satellite video calling using AST SpaceMobile’s commercial BlueWalker satellites.
Speaking of Globalstar, the company did announce it would be building an LEO satellite network predominantly for Apple’s use, but without including any details other than a $1.5 billion investment from Apple. This is on top of the $450 million Apple originally spent with Globalstar back in 2022 to bring Emergency SOS to the iPhone 14 and newer generations. With Apple investing nearly $2 billion to enable direct-to-cell satellite technology, there seems to be universal agreement from the industry that this is the future of 5G and likely 6G.
While chipsets like Qualcomm’s X80 modem with integrated NB-NTN capability are found in most flagship Android phones in 2024, Apple is also using Qualcomm but has instead opted for a modified X71 modem that does not support NTN. MediaTek has been shipping an IoT-NTN component in the form of the MT6825 — a discrete IoT chip for satellite — and will likely integrate that capability into its modems soon.
Speaking of NTN, the European Space Agency partnered with Telesat to conduct real-world 5G NTN testing using a commercial satellite from Telesat (the LEO 3). This is important because we are seeing a broader adoption of 5G NTN as the standard coming with Rel. 17, with improvements expected in 3GPP Rel. 18 and Rel. 19. While 2025 may not be the year satellite goes mainstream, it seems like it’s going to be a very busy year for satellite and we can expect to see lots of headlines about it. From speaking to some industry veterans, I believe that 2026 and 2027 will likely be the period when satellite connectivity really becomes mainstream.
AI Will Dominate 5G — And 6G
Different forms of AI have been with us for quite some time, but the hype really began at the end of 2022, ramped up in 2023 and continued at a fever pitch in 2024. That said, AI has proven to be fundamental to 5G and 6G, especially when you look at what’s been going on with radio access network technology and modems. Companies including Ericsson, Nokia and Nvidia have been leading the charge in the AI-RAN space, while Qualcomm has dominated the modem space for years. AI may end up being the technology that helps bring compute to the edge, where it’s needed to enable XR technologies and other applications starved for low-latency compute.
Among the big carriers, T-Mobile’s joint announcements with OpenAI, Nvidia and Ericsson have also reaffirmed how important AI will be for both operating networks and managing operations. T-Mobile seems confident that its embrace of AI will drive network efficiencies, better customer service experiences and better coverage, as I wrote during its Capital Markets Day.
We’ve also seen Verizon follow suit with its own 5G private network solution built in partnership with Nvidia. Verizon has long had a reputation for strong MEC capabilities, so adding Nvidia GPUs to that seems like a natural progression, especially since I believe AI will drive more demand for 5G. Verizon has also launched its new AI strategy called Verizon AI Connect, which combines the company’s strength in MEC and Fiber with its new private 5G offerings leveraging Nvidia GPU compute. I believe that companies including Verizon and T-Mobile will potentially leave the door open for edge computing applications beyond AI and 5G because of the proximity of GPUs to the network edge. I strongly believe this could bring us things like ultra-thin and -light AR glasses and more 3-D applications at the edge.
Specifically, I believe that in the near term we will see hybrid AI grow as a driver for connectivity and compute at the edge. With AI models constantly evolving, running everything in the cloud is too expensive and running everything locally is too complex. All of this tells me that Nvidia’s role in 5G and 6G seems like it will be greater than anyone previously expected, and it will likely have a transformative effect on the industry. Additionally, this seems like a huge growth opportunity for Nvidia as it continually seeks new markets for AI. Its AI capabilities will likely power many of the future experiences anyway, so it makes sense that Nvidia would be more involved in 5G networks. As I mentioned earlier, I also believe this could potentially lead to hockey-stick-like growth for XR if the applications take advantage of this edge compute.
More Spectrum, and More Spectrum Slicing
There has been a lot of talk about getting access to more spectrum for 5G or possibly 6G networks. While I don’t necessarily see that happening in 2025, there have already been rumblings that the new Trump administration might be interested in freeing up some of the 3-gigahertz spectrum that the U.S. military currently holds. That said, some estimates put the clearing costs for 150 megahertz as high as $150 billion, which would make such an auction cost-prohibitive and negate the benefits of freeing up spectrum. After all, SoftBank spent lavishly to purchase Sprint, but there was not enough capital left to deploy all the spectrum Sprint had. Ask them how that went. T-Mobile eventually acquired Sprint and used that spectrum as the backbone of its current industry-leading 5G network.
I believe that spectrum expansion will likely be a multiyear effort that might start during the Trump administration and eventually open up more spectrum to satiate the constant demand of U.S. cellular users. That said, I don’t know that adding more spectrum right now makes sense, given that we’re still not fully deployed with 5G Standalone across all three major carriers in the U.S. I believe that if AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile can all demonstrate fully-functional Standalone 5G networks, then maybe we might want to start discussions about spectrum auctions. Oh, and maybe Congress can finally give the FCC back its authority to release spectrum first? That authority lapsed more than a year ago and hasn’t been addressed yet, beyond a bill introduced in March 2024 that hasn’t gone past committee.
Network slicing is something that is also heavily dependent on the operators’ ability to deploy Standalone 5G networks. We’ve seen lots of progress from AT&T and Verizon on this front lately, especially with AT&T launching its entire fixed wireless 5G services on its Standalone 5G network. Verizon recently launched its own 5G Standalone network and started to offer new services powered by Standalone 5G and network slicing such as Enhanced Video Calling. While its competitors have already offered similar services, this is still a big step forward for the industry because I believe we won’t see broad adoption of Standalone 5G by app developers until they know they can access Standalone on all three major operators.
Also, Ericsson has announced a new joint venture called Aduna with the major operators of the world to enable 5G network APIs to be interoperable across networks and more accessible to businesses and software companies. This joint venture should in theory enable enterprises and ISVs to more effectively and easily access the capabilities of 5G networks across the world and enable consistent experiences across them.
5G Phones And 5G AI PCs
Overall, 2024 was a good year for smartphones as the industry recovered from the slowdown of 2023, which was mostly caused by China’s economic turmoil. That said, some smartphone manufacturers moved their focus into other areas. One example is Xiaomi, which successfully launched the SU7 electric vehicle, to much industry surprise and praise. Huawei also released the world’s first trifold smartphone, leading the whole industry in new foldable concepts, while Motorola quietly stole iPhone users away to Android with the Razr line of phones (as I explained in my recent review of the Razr+).
We also saw a ton of on-device AI demos and AI capabilities from chip companies, especially Qualcomm and MediaTek, and we’ll likely see even more AI, especially in the form of agents, in 2025. That said, much of the AI today is still happening in the cloud, and as those costs continue to balloon, I believe we’ll see hybrid AI become the dominant form of AI computing, especially with efficient models like the new DeepSeek R1 enabling more on-device computing. The hybrid AI approach will incidentally require more AI compute at the edge, as mentioned above, but will also require 5G connectivity to drive low-latency experiences and simply to move the amount of data upstream and downstream that’s needed for more accurate AI functionality.
I also believe that Google’s approach to on-device AI will become more dominant, and that its success with the Pixel 9 series will give it momentum for Pixel 10, which could solve the remaining issues people have with Pixel phones’ connectivity and battery life. Google has worked closely with OEMs — including Samsung on the Galaxy S25 — to enable its Gemini 2.0 model in ways that leverage on-device and cloud computing for a better user experience for features such as Gemini Live.
I believe that this set of factors could also drive more people towards 5G-connected AI PCs because so many of the capabilities of AI PCs simply don’t work without an internet connection — and 5G is basically everywhere in markets like the U.S. and western Europe, plus it’s quite fast in most scenarios. While it’s clear that smartphones such as the new Samsung Galaxy S25 will be at the forefront of AI enablement, I do believe that AI PCs with 5G connectivity could be a key accelerator of productivity, combining their powerful NPUs with AI-enhanced tools. We could also see satellite enable AI use cases that were simply impossible before, like real-time predictive logistics that are more accurate and intelligent.
Regardless of which of the specifics here actually come to pass, it’s a fair bet that the interconnected development of 5G networks (especially Standalone 5G), more-capable mobile devices, new AI-driven functionality and deployment schemas, LEO satellites and more will make this sector one of the hotbeds of tech innovation in 2025.