“5G is Going to be a Platform”

The government, telecom operators, gear makers, and others need to work in tandem to benefit from the new 5G-driven Digital India.

By Hemant Kashyap

5G holds the power to transform a variety of industries and allows for many use cases that were deemed impossible to achieve with previous generations, said Jagbir Singh, CTO, Vodafone Idea. Speaking at the Voice&Data 5G Conference, the telecom sector veteran highlighted that 5G will help the telcos evolve as a platform provider of the new digital world.

Sharing Vodafone Idea’s experience as a telecom operator, he said that telecom operators have till now deployed networks as a connectivity layer. “However, 5G will allow the operators to build the new networks as the platform for the digital society.” Singh further added that it will transform everyone’s day-to-day life.

Singh said that there were around 180-200 5G network operators across the world, covering around 500 million users. However, he said that by the end of 2026, this number will go up to 3.5 billion people. He said that this means that over the next five years, a large chunk of the population will still be on 4G. Hence, the target of the telcos now has to be to build 5G networks as a platform.

Talking about the impact of 5G and the evolving digital society Singh pointed out that in the present data-driven economy, most of the data consumption comes from the consumption of video content. “Video content in India comprises around 70% of overall data traffic,” he said, further noting that 5G will take per person per month usage from the existing levels of 14 GB to 40 GB.

He added that going forward this will be the key focus of 5G networks in the country. Since India’s smartphone penetration is on the low side right now, 5G use cases will only be effective in high smartphone density regions. “Therefore, rural smartphone penetration is one of the most important aspects to make 5G a success,” he stressed.

High speed is not enough

The Vodafone Idea CTO said that just high speed is not enough justification for the amount of investment. As such, telcos need other applications to make it a worthwhile investment. Fixed wireless access remains one of the key factors to boost 5G connectivity. Singh mentioned that many of the aforementioned operators across markets have tried deploying FWA successfully.

Speaking on the reason for the popularity of the FWA, he said that barring China, Japan, and Korea, most of the countries do not have fiber penetration.” He said FWA can provide FTTH-like performance in countries such as India, where fiber penetration remains at 3-4%.

Some of the key use cases that Singh mentioned included telemedicine and massive IoT. Talking of first, he said that rural areas will have access to better healthcare with proper FWA/5G penetration in these areas. Secondly, he said that massive IoT will become one of the most important use cases; he said that there will be at least 10 times the use by massive IoT as compared to consumers. He also highlighted that augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) also become important use cases; delivering expertise on the edge can allow much faster solutions.

Finally, he added that developing it as a platform will be a cooperative exercise – government, telecom operators, gear makers, and others have to work in tandem to successfully deploy the new network in the country.

hemantka@cybermedia.co.in