5G is here and the technology is growing, but it will still only support less than 11% of the world’s mobile connections by 2023, according to a new report from Cisco. Nonetheless, the vendor appears to be predicting a more dramatic increase in 5G connections during 2022 because last year it expected 5G connections to represent just 3% of total mobile connections by 2022.

Within the next three years, 5G speeds will be 13-times faster than the average mobile connection, according to Cisco. The vendor’s Annual Internet Report projects the average 5G speed will be 575 Mb/s and that heightened performance will fuel more expansive infrastructure for artificial intelligence, IoT applications, and immersive video experiences.

More than 70% of the world’s population will have access to mobile connectivity by 2023, and 66%, or 5.3 billion people, will be internet users, according to Cisco. The average number of connected devices per person and household will also rise to 3.6 and 10, respectively, during the same period. Mobile connections are poised to capture 45% of all networked devices while wired and WiFi-enabled connections will comprise the remaining 55%.

The rise of IoT will also continue, reaching about 50%, or 14.7 billion of the total global devices in use by 2023, Cisco reported. Low power wide area (LPWA) connections will power 14.4% of total mobile connections, compared to 2.5% in 2018, according to the report. That's just a 0.4% increase from what Cisco projected LPWA to support by 2022, according to last year's report.

Meanwhile, WiFi hotspots are expected to jump four-fold from 2018 to 2023, reaching nearly 628 million public WiFi hotspots. WiFi 6 will also grow by 13 times its current penetration during the next three years, powering 11% of all public WiFi hotspots, the vendor concluded.

Cisco’s researchers predict average global mobile connection speeds will increase from 13 Mb/s in 2018, to 44 Mb/s in 2023, and average global WiFi speeds will jump from 30 Mb/s in 2018, to 92 Mb/s in 2023.

“What we are seeing from our research is a continuous rise in internet users, devices, connections, and more demand on the network than we could have imagined,” said Cisco CTO Roland Acra in a prepared statement.