The November 2025 edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report arrives at a critical moment for IT and business leaders. With digital infrastructure becoming the backbone of competitiveness, connectivity has progressed from a supporting service to a strategic enabler.
This year’s findings show a global shift toward differentiated connectivity, driven largely by the maturing of 5G Standalone (5G SA) and network slicing. As enterprises confront new demands around IoT scalability, cloud-native operations, AI workloads, and real-time data exchange, the ability to secure predictable performance is becoming indispensable.
For CIOs, CTOs, and security leaders, the data in this report marks a turning point: the era of best-effort connectivity is giving way to networks engineered for deterministic performance, quality guarantees, and application-aware service tiers.
1. Differentiated Connectivity Becomes Mainstream
According to the latest Ericsson Mobility Report, 33 communications service providers (CSPs) now offer commercial differentiated connectivity services powered by network slicing, yielding 65 live offerings. This represents a major jump in market maturity, fueled by the rollout of 5G SA worldwide.
Unlike traditional mobile services, differentiated connectivity uses dedicated slices of the network to provide specific performance guarantees. For enterprises, this means they can align connectivity directly with operational goals:
- Mission-critical traffic with low latency,
- Mobility-intensive use cases with guaranteed throughput, or
- High-reliability services for automation and manufacturing.
The market momentum is clear: network slicing is moving from theory to commercialisation, and organisations across sectors, from manufacturing, healthcare, logistics, media, to public safety, are beginning to treat connectivity not just as infrastructure, but as a controllable dimension of service quality.
2. 5G SA Momentum: From Trials to Commercial Reality
Behind this shift lies the accelerating global deployment of 5G Standalone. The report highlights that more than 90 service providers have launched or soft-launched 5G SA. This trend is accelerating faster than expected.
The operational maturity of 5G SA matters because it introduces capabilities not possible with non-standalone 5G, including:
- End-to-end network slicing,
- Ultra-low latency performance,
- Advanced policy and traffic isolation,
- Deterministic QoS management.
In total, the report identifies 118 documented network slicing use cases across 56 CSPs, proving that the technology is scaling globally. Even more striking: 21 of the 65 commercial offerings launched in 2025 alone, indicating that enterprises are now pushing for differentiated connectivity faster than CSPs can build it.
The report highlights that service providers are using SA to move beyond selling larger data bundles. They are building value-based offerings that focus on experience, performance and outcome-driven service tiers. The shift positions 5G SA as a strategic enabler for enterprise digital transformation.
3. Network Slicing Unlocks New Enterprise Models
What makes network slicing important for CIOs is its potential to deliver enterprise-grade service tiers over public mobile networks. That opens the door to new operational models, including:
Performance-tiered mobility services
Enterprises can purchase a slice with defined throughput, latency, or jitter parameters for specific applications, such as mobile robotics, AR-based maintenance, or connected vehicles.
Premium consumer experiences
Operators are starting to launch slices for high-performance gaming, XR experiences, and live-event streaming, building new business models around guaranteed performance.
Hybrid private-public campus connectivity
Slicing enables a continuum of service that complements private 5G with predictable public-network performance beyond the campus edge.
IoT-scale network management
Sliced networks allow IoT deployments to scale rapidly while maintaining secure isolation from consumer traffic.
As more CSPs move from proofs of concept to commercial deployment, CIOs should treat slicing as a near-term planning requirement, not a distant technology horizon.
4. Long-Term Outlook: 5G, FWA, and the First Steps Toward 6G
Beyond the immediate growth of differentiated connectivity, the Mobility Report provides an updated forecast to 2031, giving enterprise leaders visibility into the next connectivity cycle.
5G Subscription Growth
- 6.4 billion 5G subscriptions expected by end of 2031
- Two-thirds of all mobile subscriptions will be 5G
- 4.1 billion of these will be 5G SA
- 2.9 billion subscriptions reached by the end of 2025, up 600 million YoY
Coverage is also expanding rapidly. In 2025 alone, 400 million more people gained access to 5G, with about 50% of the global population outside China covered by year-end.
Mobile Data Traffic Growth
Global mobile data usage grew 20% YoY, outpacing expectations. 5G’s share of mobile data will climb:
- 43% by end of 2025
- 83% by 2031
This reinforces the strategic importance of 5G SA deployment for managing future network load efficiently.
FWA (Fixed Wireless Access) Momentum
FWA continues to be one of the major 5G success stories:
- 1.4 billion people globally will rely on FWA by 2031
- 90% of them via 5G
- 159 providers now offer 5G FWA solutions
- Speed-based tariffs (common in fiber and cable) have grown from 43% to 54%
This makes FWA a serious alternative for enterprise branch connectivity, rural broadband, and rapid-deployment networking.
Early 6G Outlook
The report also extends its forecast to include the early years of 6G adoption:
- 180 million 6G subscriptions globally by 2031
- Initial deployments expected in the U.S., Japan, South Korea, China, India, and GCC countries
- Europe expected to launch about a year later due to slower 5G SA rollout
- Uptake could accelerate if 6G enters the market earlier than anticipated
For CIOs building multi-year network roadmaps, the message is clear: 6G planning now starts in parallel with 5G optimisation, not afterward.
5. What This Means for CIOs and IT Decision-Makers
The Ericsson Mobility Report outlines current network developments and their direct implications for enterprise strategy.
1. Connectivity must become a governed, measurable business asset
With differentiated connectivity emerging at scale, enterprises can no longer treat mobile networking as a best-effort utility. Instead, they can specify performance requirements the same way they do in cloud SLAs.
2. IT leaders can prepare for hybrid “Wi-Fi + 5G SA + FWA” architectures
Future-ready organisations will use the right access technology for each workload:
- Wi-Fi for dense indoor environments
- Private 5G for mission-critical campus operations
- Public 5G slices for mobility and wide-area performance guarantees
- 5G FWA for branch connectivity and non-fiber locations
3. Digital transformation programs will increasingly depend on 5G SA
Manufacturing automation, real-time analytics, video-based inspection, mobile robotics, and AR/VR workflows all benefit directly from deterministic connectivity.
4. Security models need to adapt to sliced and distributed connectivity
Slicing enables stronger traffic isolation, but it also requires unified identity, policy orchestration, and zero-trust enforcement across multi-access environments.
5. Now is the time to establish 6G-readiness principles
IT leaders should begin aligning their infrastructure roadmaps with:
- Cloud-native network architectures,
- AI-driven automation,
- Multi-access WAN strategies, and
- Spectrum-agnostic planning.
6. Preparing for the Next Connectivity Cycle
Differentiated connectivity is available today, and its adoption is expanding as more service providers deploy 5G Standalone. Based on the report’s insights, CIOs and IT leaders should:
- Engage CSPs on differentiated connectivity offers and evaluate the availability of network slices in their regions.
- Assess readiness for hybrid network architectures that combine Wi-Fi, private 5G, public 5G slices, and FWA.
- Identify applications that benefit most from guaranteed performance, such as automation, IoT, and real-time analytics.
- Establish multi-year strategies that anticipate 6G timelines, even if deployments remain several years out.
- Invest in platforms that unify networking, security, and observability, ensuring a consistent operational model across all access technologies.
The Ericsson Mobility Report makes one thing clear: the next era of connectivity is about alignment between network capability and business need. As differentiated services grow and 5G SA becomes mainstream, enterprises that strategically adopt these technologies will be best positioned for the coming decade of innovation.
Talk to us about the practical use of 5G SA and network slicing in your organisation. We will show you which scenarios are feasible today and which steps make sense for your roadmap.