Is India's telecom industry ready for 5G?

By Sameer Mahapatra, Country Sales Head- India and SAARC, Aeris India 

The building blocks for tomorrow's digital economy rests on the shoulders of highly driven technology and fast networking solutions. The question that comes to mind - Is India technologically adept? If not, then by when will India be advanced enough. Many areas in the country are still dependent on 2G or 3G internet, which means that the most recent generation of the network- 4G- has not been utilized to its optimum ability.

India has over 600 million internet users, which is a lot of ground to cover.  A lot of people think that betting big on the Internet of Things (IoT) -based communications and video analytics/streaming is the way to deploy 5G technology. They often do not take into consideration the lack of readiness of Communications Service Providers (CSPs) in making 5G networks ready. It took around seven to eight years for the 3G and 4G network to completely penetrate in India, whereas, 5G is heavily talked about nowadays and is expected to be introduced in the country soon enough.

There is no doubt about the fact that 5G will bring a lot of improvements to the connectivity and network as it would provide us with better data transfer speed, latency, and throughput. However, that is possible only when the technological atmosphere is at its brink to a revolution. A 5G revolution seems extremely positive for India's growing demand for a digital economy and, it is sure that the next generation would accelerate the growth for the country. However, despite putting continuous efforts towards the development of 5G, the actual reality still seems far-fetched.

The introduction of 5G in the country will not only lead to better connectivity but will also help in developing smart cities, the betterment of telemedicine, and creating better mobility in the auto sector. A lot of telecom players are deploying 5G ready solutions like MIMO antennas, TDD cells, small cells, etc. but are facing heavy infrastructural costs. On top of it, the Coronavirus crisis has taken all over the world and has reduced the speed and efficiency with which the sector was growing.

In today's time, 4G LTE is more accessible and 5G is soon going to be a reality. Besides, new types of IoT sensors and devices are being developed consistently. New cellular technologies will begin to replace existing ones over time, so it is important to plan the device and application lifecycles accordingly. Aeris always tries to stay at the edge of the curve and emerge further by adopting new and improved technologies.

Enterprises using 5G networks will deploy IoT technology to connect the unconnected products for offering connected services to consumers. The momentum for IoT-enabled ecosystem is building up in India. Enterprises, SMB’s, and government bodies have established working groups dedicated to achieving this goal. Even after having several models of standards development, such as the proprietary- and government-led models, collaborative standards development has apprehended a superior position. Creating an application ecosystem, preparing the network infrastructure, and establishing strategic partnerships are essential to help develop sustainable business models for the IoT ecosystem.

There is a lot of hype going around 5G in the country because of which new applications are flourishing. This revolution is set to push the world forward in terms of digital transformation projects. We are determined to contribute to the 5G wave by constant innovation through our IoT services and by providing critical building blocks for large, complex IoT programs, enabling OEMs and enterprises to stay focused on their core competencies.