Introduction

5G is the fifth-generation technology standard for broadband cellular networks predicted to have more than 1.2 billion connections and cover one-third of the world’s population by 2025. The impact on the mobile industry and its customers will be profound, especially with the recent inclusion of satellites into the standard. This offers new opportunities for satellites to integrate with terrestrial networks to manage connectivity to cars, ships, planes and other IoT devices in remote and rural areas. Will this satellite and telco industry convergence be a revolution or an evolution? To share some research and insights on this question, we have with us today Yesmean Luk, a Senior Consultant at STL Partners. She has led and managed client projects with both operators and technology companies across a number of domains, including private networks, telco cloud, network slicing, edge computing and IoT.