5G has the Potential to Transform the Socio-Economic Fabric of the Society – V. Raghunandan, Secretary, TRAI

During his Special Address at the 3^rd edition of the Voice&Data TLF 5G Conference, “5G for Delivering Transformation”, V. Raghunandan, Secretary, TRAI, said that 5G held immense transformative capabilities across multiple aspects.

5G – A Transformative Experience

Raghunandan said that the next generation of connectivity will help TSPs to “move beyond connectivity”. He added that telcos can move to “collaborate across the sectors” to deliver new, rich services to the consumers and enterprises alike. He tipped the telcos to go on and develop strategic partnerships in sectors such as finance, agriculture, transportation, health and so on.

Raghunandan said that not only will 5G supply higher data speeds and capacity at lower latencies, it will also do so efficiently. The sector regulator’s secretary said that 5G will improve energy efficiency, spectral efficiency, network efficiency and efficiency of other systems.

The TRAI Secretary further said that 5G will allow the TSPs to open new avenues to services, beyond the normal voice and data. IoT, AI, AR, VR and User Experience related technologies were some of the non-telecom applications of 5G laid out by the TRAI secretary.

Rural India a Priority for 5G – Raghunandan

Raghunandan also highlighted the socio-economic transformation that 5G will bring about. He said that 5G can provide millions of rural Indians with access to a new avenue of opportunities. This will ensure a positive growth curve for the rural economy and remains the area with the greatest potential, he added.

According to the latest TRAI data shared by Raghunandan, there are about 534 million rural mobile broadband subscribers in India. Per Raghunandan and TRAI, this represents almost 60% of all mobile subscribers in India.

Raghunandan mentioned that since agriculture and related verticals remains the primary business for most of the rural population, 5G can help in many ways. First, he said that 5G networks will give farmers access to bigger markets and “forge a closer link with farmers and consumers, which was not earlier seen”.

Government’s Connectivity Initiatives

Raghunandan pointed out a few of the most significant of the government policies for facilitation of deployment of the new generation of mobile networks. First, he talked about the National Digital Communication Policy, launched in 2018. Raghunandan said that the government sought to facilitate the development of new use-cases for the next-gen mobile networks via the policy, such as AI, M2M, AR and VR.

Next, he talked about the government’s “Building an end-to-end 5G Testbed” initiative, introduced in 2018. The three-year program, he said, had a budget of around Rs. 224 crores. The program sought PoCs for 5G compatible with the global standards. He ran the audience through the progress leading to the imminent rollout; first, DoT issued guidelines in June 2019, and by May 2021, 5G trials were underway across 3 spectrum bands.

Third, Raghunandan addressed the connectivity issues that rural India. He said that out of some 6 lakh villages, 33% were in Odisha and Arunachal Pradesh alone. Drawing the attention to the same, he then spoke about “the government’s flagship program”, the BharatNet.

The broadband project is the world’s largest rural broadband project, aiming to connect all of the villages in the country. Raghunandan shared that out of the 2.5 lakh gram panchayats, 1.6 lakh have already been connected to the BharatNet. He shared further statistics related to the same:

• Over 5 lakh kilometers of fiber laid
• 1 lakh+ Wi-Fi Hotspots installed
• More than 5 lakh FTTH connections working
• About 15 lakh active users per May 2021 data
• 7 million GB data used.

The TRAI secretary then talked about PM-WANI, the Wi-Fi Access Network Initiative by the Government of India. Cleared in 2020, the project will include PDOs, multiple industry players and others to set up a network of Wi-Fi Access hotspots across the rural India. It will be a cost-effective measure to extend the “Digital India” vision.

Lastly, he also mentioned the ever-growing satcom industry. Though the affordability is a concern now, it will help in the mission to connect the country, he concluded.