In June 2020, the number of announced 5G devices exceeded 300 for the first time; by end August 401 devices had been announced, of which 138 are phones which are commercially available today.
“While, perhaps inevitably, the global COVID-19 epidemic has had a major impact on national plans for the assignment of spectrum for mobile services, 5G device announcements and launches have continued apace,” said Joe Barrett, President of Global mobile Suppliers Association.
“5G phones and Fixed Wireless Access CPE still dominate, with the number of announced devices in each of these categories growing strongly during 2020. In fact, the number of announced 5G phones has more than doubled since the end of March 2020, while the number of announced FWA CPE is up by almost 50% in the same period. It is clear that regulators need to make spectrum available, since the mobile ecosystem is primed and ready to put 5G into people’s hands.”
Part of the GSA Analyser for Mobile Broadband Data (GAMBoD) database, is the device ecosystem which tracks 5G (and 4G) devices and contains key details about device form factors, features and support for spectrum bands. Access to the GAMBoD database is only available to GSA Members and to GSA Associates subscribing to the service.
By end of August 2020, GSA had identified:
• 18 announced form factors
• 93 vendors that had announced available or forthcoming 5G devices
• 401 announced devices (including regional variants, and phones that can be upgraded using a separate adapter, but excluding prototypes not expected to be commercialised and operator-branded devices that are essentially rebadged versions of other phones), including at least 190 that are commercially available:
- 181 phones (up 19 since July), at least 138 of which are now commercially available (up 25 in a month). Includes three phones that are upgraded to offer 5G using an adapter
- 100 CPE devices (indoor and outdoor, including two Verizon-spec compliant devices not meeting 3GPP 5G standards, and enterprise grade CPE/routers/gateways), at least 24 of which are commercially available
- 64 modules, at least 11 of which are commercially available
- 23 hotspots (including regional variants), at least 11 of which are commercially available
- 6 laptops (notebooks)
- 6 tablets
- 21 other devices (including drones, head-mounted displays, robots, snap-on dongles/adapters, a switch, , TVs, USB terminals/dongles/modems, cameras, a vehicle OBU and a vending machine)
