5G services introduction in India – Telecom manufacturing industry- A perspective

As 5G mobile communication technology is getting introduced in India after the 5G spectrum auctions, it is going to be positive game changer for the telecom manufacturing industry in India. As the 5G speeds goes up tremendously and it is going to fulfil the requirements of high bandwidth applications like cloud computing, machine-2-machine communication (M2M), internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), traffic management systems, smart city applications, advance gaming systems, augmented reality (AR) systems, fintech systems, industry automation using high bandwidth applications, autonomous cars in automobile applications, there is huge scope of opportunities for both passive and active network products and solutions providers to the ultimate end users in the telecom industry.

There is going to be a surge in optical fibre cable network deployment of more than 4–5 times from the existing amount of network deployment/availability, as the 5G technology requires very dense fiberization in all backbone, long-haul, access, metro, and premise network segments. Also, the cell sites have to be fiberized to the extent of more than 85 percent from the existing level of 32 percent to have a deep coverage of 5G mobile communication network requirements as the data consumption requirements are very huge. Further, there will be a huge jump in the number of smart cell sites required to cater to the demand of 5G technology where densification of network is the key for the success of the entire telecom eco-system.

To aid faster fiberization, the Government of India is changing the requisite laws and guidelines for getting the quick Right of Way (RoW) permissions from central, state and other agencies to make the optical fibre cable deployment easier to facilitate the industry to speed up the network creation which will ultimately help the industry to support the network deployment in a holistic manner. Even the infrastructure creation of highways across the country earmarks special and dedicated corridor for laying ducts and through these ducts, the optical fibre cable can be blown in based on the incremental requirements of the industry. This should augur well as the practical bottlenecks for obtaining the RoW permissions are done away with and readymade available infrastructure is already created for the industry to use the same in a prudent way for the long term goals of the telecom Industry.

Coupled with the boom in the demand of optical fibre cables for the creation of standalone 5G networks being planned by the telecom operators, there will be a huge requirement of passive accessories like joint closures, distribution boxes/junctions and various other components like adaptors, pig tails and patch cords, etc in creating the complete telecom network infrastructure.

On the active side, there will be a huge demand for 5G telecom equipment from all the telecom service providers, as they ramp up the 5G network roll-out to cater to the requirements of the subscribers in the shortest possible timelines.

The government’s favourable policy tweaks for the telecom Industry is going to pave the way for a healthy growth of this sector in the country after the teething troubles being faced by the industry, that should soon to become a past occurrence as the telecom industry is looking forward to have a positive growth cycle in the coming years.