Multi-method Approach to Forecast the Diffusion of 5G

멀티메소드 기반의 5G 이용확산 전망

Korea launched the world’s first commercial 5G services in April 2019, securing an advantageous position in preoccupying the new mobile market. But it was pursued somewhat radically for the first commercialization, systematic analysis of market demand base was overlooked. For that reason, this paper, in order to overcome the limitations of the solution of the analytical approach due to the high complexity of the real world, estimates the diffusion of 5G users through a multi-method technique that combines modeling based on systemic thinking with the behavior of individual agents. Based on these demand forecasts, it was tried to find a way to contribute to the establishment of strategic policies. The simulations were conducted according to three rational scenarios based on potential subscribers. It was estimated that subscribers ranged from 39.95 million to 44.45 million at 81 months after the launching of 5G. This is lower than the actual 4G observations, which is attributed to the constraints of potential subscribers and coverage set in the simulation model. However, when the 5G potential saturation value is applied to the maximum of actual 4G subscriber, the simulation result was similar to the 4G increasing trend. Especially after 81 months, absolute percentage error rate was only 0.6% between the 4G real subscriber and the 5G predictive subscriber, which seems to support the validity of the model.