5G手机离我们还有多远？

关于下一代移动技术（5G）的讨论一直是雷声大雨点小。整个无线通讯行业至今仍未就通用标准达成共识，监管机构也仍然在酝酿频率分配和其它监管规则，因此5G时代可能还需要几年的时间才能到来。

虽然5G还有很多问题尚未解决，然而在所有这些问题中最不明确的一个，则是该技术一旦成熟了，各大移动运营商届时将如何推动该技术的商用。据传5G网络的下载速度可达到4G网络峰值下载速度的十倍以上，但它也面临着一些仍需攻克的挑战，比如信号的远距离传输以及对物体和建筑物的穿透性等问题。

美国的三大运营商Verizon、Sprint和T-Mobile都已对5G网络的测试结果和可能的使用案例进行了讨论。那么，5G的推广重点究竟是手机、平板电脑、家用网络服务、智能设备、“物联网”，还是其他一些全新的东西？暂时还不得而知。

与此同时，高通、诺基亚和爱立信等硬件厂商也都着眼于5G时代绘制了各具特色的路线图。

即便5G还存在着种种不确定性，但是“职业预言家”们的各种预测已经满天飞了——他们就是那些靠发布预测为生的市场研究机构。虽然这些业内大神的预测经常严重跑偏（比如曾有人预言，到2016年，Windows系统将占据手机市场半壁江山），不过至少他们还是为行业的发展提供了一些参考标准。比如各路分析师对VR市场的销量预测全都高得离谱，但他们最近也纷纷下调了销量预期，这就我们提供了一个信号——VR技术的确是可能被炒作过头了。

本周，总部位于美国波士顿的战略分析公司（Strategy Analytics）就发布了两份分析报告，对5G的推广及5G设备市场的发展进行了预测。

战略分析公司的一名主管肯·海尔斯在其中一篇分析报告中指出：“第一批商用5G手持设备将于2020年在韩国和日本少量出现，从2021年起，美国、英国、瑞典、阿联酋和中国等国都将推出5G设备。到2022年，全球将售出数千万台5G手持设备，届时5G设备占全部手持设备销量的百分比将达到较低的个位数水平。”

该公司的分析报告还认为，早期的5G手机的价格将会很贵，而且续航时间也是个大问题，连接也不稳定，而且可能无法很好地兼容当前的4G LTE系统。但这些问题到2020年都将得到解决。到2025年，兼容5G网络的手机的销量将超过3亿部。

这种一本正经的预测看起来似乎严谨，但现在却无法证实。然而当你过几年回头看看，这个预测或许会显得相当愚蠢。但不管怎样，它还是为“5G热”提供了一个可借鉴的参考标准。到了明年，战略分析公司可能已经把2025年的预测修改成了2亿部或4亿部。

不过不管它明年被改成2亿部还是4亿部，它对2025年的5G手机销量的指导意义并不大，但却能从一定程度上说明在2016年和2017年，整个行业在5G技术的早期技术测试以及标准和规则的制定上取得了哪些进步。（财富中文网）

译者：朴成奎

The next generation of mobile technology, known as 5G, remains years away, with the wireless industry still trying to reach agreement on needed standards and regulators still pondering spectrum assignments and other rules.

And with many questions yet to be answered, perhaps the most unmade decision of all is just how mobile carriers will proceed once the technology is ready. The 5G technology appears to provide connections 10 or more times faster than the current top download speeds, but it also faces challenges traveling over long distances and penetrating objects and buildings.

Verizon Communications , AT&T , Sprint , and T-Mobile  have all discussed test results and possible use cases. Will they focus on 5G phones and tablets, home Internet service, smart devices, and the “Internet of things,” or something completely different? It’s too soon to know.

Meanwhile, manufacturers including Qualcomm, Nokia, and Ericsson are offering their own varied roadmaps for when 5G equipment will be ready.

But that kind of uncertainty doesn’t deter the professional prognosticators of the industry—the market research firms that make their living by making forecasts. And while those forecasts can be horribly off (who else remembers that Windows Mobile was going to conquer smartphones by 2016?), they do at least provide benchmarks along the way. Sales forecasts for the virtual reality market still seem insanely high, for example, but they have been going down lately, providing a signal that the tech likely has been overhyped.

So into the 5G breech steps Strategy Analytics this week, with a pair of reports forecasting how the rollout will proceed and how the 5G mobile device market will grow.

“While the first commercial 5G handsets will appear in small numbers in 2020 in South Korea and Japan, from 2021 more countries, including the U.S., U.K., Sweden, UAE, and China, will see their own launches,” says Ken Hyers, a director at Strategy Analytics, in one report. “By 2022 tens of millions of 5G handsets will be sold, and as a proportion of total handset sales will reach low single digit percentages.”

Early phones will be expensive and struggle with poor battery life, unstable connectivity and an inability to interact smoothly with earlier wireless standards like the current 4G LTE system, the firm warns. But these issues will be resolved by 2020 and 5G-compatible phone sales will exceed 300 million by 2025.

That kind of bold, line-in-the-sand numerical forecast is just the kind of precise but unknowable prediction that can look so foolish in the years to come. But it nonetheless provides benchmark of the 5G hype that can be useful. By next year, Strategy Analytics may have revised its 2025 sales prediction to 200 million or, perhaps, 400 million phones.

Either way, it will reveal less about actual phone sales in 2025 than it will about how much progress the industry made in 2016 and 2017 on the early technology tests and the needed standards and rules.