Juniper Research: Voice-over-5G Minutes to Grow 500% over Five Years, with Market Primed for New Business Voice Services

A new study by Juniper Research has found that the total minutes of Vo5G (Voice-over-5G) usage will reach 4.7 trillion in 2028, representing 42% of total minutes and an increase of over 500% from 2023. To capitalise on this growth, the report urges operators to develop enterprise-facing solutions, monetising the rise in demand of 5G voice services from enterprises. Operators must leverage the highly virtualised network architectures to rapidly launch new services such as programmable voice, call masking and flash calling to maximise 5G voice revenue.

Voice-over-5G utilises the 5G network core to provide enhanced voice services, including ultra-high voice definition and the ability to integrate IP-based solutions over voice.

Juniper Research forecasts that operators will experience significant declines in voice revenue from consumer mobile subscriptions, leading to a decrease in the value of the voice market from $230 billion in 2023 to $182 billion in 2028. In response, operators must offset this decline with new revenue streams, including the development of new business-focused voice services.

The report identified the launch of the GSMA’s Open Gateway in 2023 as the ideal platform to rapidly implement these new voice services. This initiative, which already includes tier 1 operators, will enable federated access to APIs over operator networks, substantially reducing the time for new voice services to be implemented across operator networks globally.

To maximise future voice revenue, the report recommends operators to implement voice firewalls that can differentiate between P2P voice and business voice traffic. This will enable operators to charge enterprises a premium for voice, in a similar fashion to the business messaging ecosystem established today. Additionally, 5G networks will enable operators to better compete against OTT voice services, as 5G allows for swift deployments of new technologies, such as voice firewalls, which can block fraudulent voice traffic in real-time.

Source: Juniper Research media announcement