5G – A highway for data services

Envision an India where limitless connectivity implies vast conceivable outcomes, and where connectivity enables an exciting future and unlocks unseen possibilities, redefines business, and develops a sustainable future. Telecom and broadband form an important infrastructure backbone in the country. Telecom, both as a service and infrastructure, should be considered a resource of national importance since the data connectivity to India’s popula­tion with the wide deployment of broadband is the core of India’s Digital India scheme.

This avant-garde technology has the potential to become the future communication platform of choice for every industry like manufacturing, education, health, entertainment, real estate, etc. 5G, through its inherent strengths, will also enable the growth of new-age technologies like IoT, M2M, AI, AR, and VR. 5G will transfigure the digital landscape and serve as a catalyst for innovation, new markets, and economic growth. With 5G, the technology will evolve at a rapid pace, which will thereby enable faster change and progress across sectors.

Albeit, the advantages presented by 5G administrations are significant; administrators’ endeavors to adapt the innovation face a few crucial difficulties. Administrators are battling with moves, for example, ventures, to create solid and reasonable broadband associations that arrive at each side of the country to give network. Optical fiber cables (OFCs) are prime pots to drive the advantages of the progressive 5G innovation. The DoT will be assigning backhaul frequencies to support the networks with lesser fiber connectivity, and ensure a faster upgrade. By March 2023, we will witness more than 75,000 5G sites.

Also, the introduction of 5G is expected to provide a multitude of benefits with its features including edge computing, network slicing, and dynamic bandwidth sharing. It will also usher us away from a world of hardware choke points and toward virtualized digital routers distributed throughout the network. This will open several potential sources of cyber threats, with each activity serving as a potential attack vector.

The separate private captive net­works are yet another challenge as they can be detri­mental to national security. The spectrum should not be allocated on an admini­strative basis as it leads to no business case for the rollout of 5G networks in the country. If the independent entities set up private captive networks with direct 5G spectrum allot­ment by DoT, it will diminish the revenue and there will be no suitable business case left for the TSPs and there would not be any need for 5G networks rollout by TSPs.

The Government of India recognizes the added signi­ficance of the telecom industry, which bodes well for its future aspirations of continued growth. To meet these challenges with reliable solutions, the government has announced initiatives like the National Broadband Mission to bring last-mile connectivity across the country. The announcement of Gati Shakti – a national master plan for multi-modal connectivity – a national project of ₹100 lakh crore for developing holistic infrastructure, was a great initiative to build a robust telecom ecosystem through production-linked incentive schemes.

The recently concluded 5G spectrum auction will be providing a gross amount of over ₹1.5 lakh crore to the DoT. The telecom players may have to spend almost USD 22 billion further in the next five years to make 5G networks strong, and expand at the national level with quality services. The 5G equipment providers like Nokia and Ericsson, with their manufacturing facilities in India, will speed up the production, ensuring no delay in the execution.

The rollout of 5G services in India will have a global impact and a proud milestone, which can be considered in Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav. 5G will be a force-multiplier for realizing India’s vision to become a USD 1Tn digital economy by 2025. With a solid base of 5G-proficient devices currently set up and the forthcoming 5G sell-offs, India is venturing nearer to achieving a 5G-driven future. 5G is key, both from a digital connectivity perspective, as well as to give a strong momentum to the Government of India’s initiatives in embracing, guiding, and utilizing arising advances for the more noteworthy cultural great.