5G in India

Government of India has set aside Rs. 500 crores for research on the latest Telecom standard, along with setting up a high-level panel to develop a roadmap for operationalizing 5G Telecom services in India by 2020. The government has included the two ministries of Telecom, Information and Technology, and Science and Technology in this panel. This decision is coming at a time when various Telecom operators are struggling to improve the 4G services in India. Although it is appreciable that Government of India is trying to move with the same pace as the rest of the world in this sector in an effort to promote Digital India, but it seems highly unlikely that India would able to reach this target by 2020. Although if everything goes according to the plan it would effectively make wireless communication superfast by enabling higher data speed. According to the press release of the Indian government it is aiming at “a globally competitive product development and manufacturing ecosystem targeting 50% of the Indian market and 10% of global market over next five to seven years”. A consultation paper is already released by TRAI (The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) in August last year on framing regulations and standards for the roll out of 5G networks and IoT (Internet of Things).

The Telecom sector has seen a new mobile generation roughly every 10 years since the first 1G system was introduced in 1981. After 2G started to roll out in 1992, while for 3G it was year 2001. Although most Telecom firms claim that they can provide speeds up to 21.1 Mbps on their 3G networks, but this value falls when sharing among users. Other than that their is a "fair usage policy" followed by most of the firms wherein speed drops after reaching a specified download limit. Technically, 4G should have data speeds capable of reaching 100 megabytes per second while on the move, and 1 GB per second when stationary. 5G promises to give a downloading speed up to 10 gigabits per second. Another defining feature of 5G will be that unlike 4G, 5G network will offer the ability to handle a variety of devices and traffic type.

Regardless of the fact that universal 5G standards have not been agreed upon yet, some countries are aiming to launch 5G services as early as 2018. KT Corp of the South Korea has reportedly completed successful trials of the 5G system and are planning to launch it by February 2018. Japan is also planning its roll out by 2020, and so is United States. Telia and Ericsson are planning to launch 5G services in Sweden and Estonia by 2018. 

There has been a boom in mobile data usage in the last five years with 74% increase in 2015 alone taking the overall global figure to around 3.7 exabytes (one Exabyte is 1 followed by 18 zeroes) per month. The expectation of having a high-speed data connection at all times is corroborated the growth of streaming services and people's growing use of apps. Hence eventually 5G will step up. 5G means the opportunity for properly connected smart cities, remote surgery, driverless cars and the IoT. According to a study, the global 5G value chain will generate $3.5 trillion in output and support 22 million jobs in 2035. It also said that the total contribution of 5G to the global GDP would be equivalent to a country the size of India. Therefore 5G is an eventuality technically as well as economically. India was late to catch up with the 2G and 3G revolutions, but recent developments suggests India does not want that to happen again. 

But the Indian Telecom industry is unsure of India's readiness for the 5G technology. TRAI has decided the spectrum 3300-3400 Mhz and 3400-3600 Mhz bands to be used for 5G. But the industry doesn't want the spectrum auction before 2019 indicating that the ecosystem around the technology is far from being developed. Although it would generate a lot of revenue for the government but it would require the bleeding Telecom industry to invest more. 4G is still budding, its speed in India is  much slower compared to other countries, including Pakistan and Sri Lanka and 5G is not an overlay network it has to work in tandem with 4G. Although Bharti Airtel has taken some steps in implementing the 5G technology hence it would be interesting to see how things turn around. Remember no one is yet able to put a figure to the cost which will be involved in the roll-out of 5G.

International Telecommunications Union (ITU) regulates the use of frequency bands. Data is transmitted through radio waves and these waves are split into bands or ranges of different frequencies. Different bands are reserved for different type of communication like aeronautical and maritime navigation signals, television broadcasts and mobile data. Currently ITU is working on harmonising the frequency spectrum for the 5G technology.