New Role for Wholesale in 5G Era?

Will wholesale assume a new importance in the 5G era, when large app providers, device suppliers and enterprises might want to bundle connectivity with their own apps and services? And will new virtualized 5G network features--such as the ability to create “network slices”--play a role?

Such are reasonable questions, one might agree.  Of some 800 industry professionals polled about 5G by Telecoms.com, 80 percent agreed  that “delivering MVNO-like services will mean dedicating a dynamic network slice based on customers’ specific needs”.

In other words, wholesale services might well take a new tack in the 5G era, with fewer sales to retail MVNOs and more sales to enterprises (app, device, service) that want to bundle connectivity with the products they sell, or the users they support.

About 70 percent of respondents agreed that  “we need to enable enterprise customers to act as a private MVNO in their own right, using 5G.