5G: Where’s the jam on this bread?

With B2B applications, FWA, WiFi6 and super-apps – 5G can decode the puzzle of monetisation – industry experts explain how

Monetising 5G Services is a tough nut to crack for many players despite all the hype and hoopla around 5G. But, would teeth like apt and innovative business models, value-added servicesand revenue streams help?That is what a chat recently unlocked in a panel discussion at Voice&Data 5G+ Conference. The panel was moderated by Jaideep Ghosh, Former Partner, KPMG.

Ghosh started by staring honestly at the big question: despite having over one billion 5G subscriptions, the world is still grappling with the issue of monetisation. “India is adding 5G subscriptions at a very fast pace. Thanks to the massive population base and industry growth, it is expected that the country will have around 500-700 million 5G subscriptions by 2028. A lot of money has been committed to spectrum auction and then there are other investments and network roll-outs in progress. With such huge bets being made, there would be a need for some kind of returns too.” Would we get them, and how,he asked the panelists.

Tap more GBs, FWA, use cases, and B2B

Salil Khanna, National Head, Enterprise and Government Business, Reliance Jio took this question head-on by rewinding a little to pre-4G days. “The industry faced the same question. Many said India does not need or can’t afford 4G. But India, including telcos and consumers, gained so much. It has been transformative. 5G needs massive investments. Expected roll-outs are on the way.The entire India would be covered by the end of December, at least, from Jio’s perspective.” As to monetisation, before 4G, India was consuming less than a GB per month, and with 4G we grew from 10GB to 20 GB, and with 5G, we can touch 30 to 40 GB a month, he pointed out.

“As you consume more, you pay more – that is a simple Maths,” Khanna explained. India has a lot of headroom, especially when FWA fills the gap of making every home a broadband home. That will pave the way for revenue monetisation. A lot of opportunity will also come from B2B’s share in the incremental side of 5G revenues. You will see all this happening shortly,” he remarked.

Saurabh Mittal, VP, and Head, of Industry, and Technology, Bharti Airtel took everyone even some more years back. “When 3G was being standardised in the mid-90s, the Internet was not even created properly. When 4G standards were being defined, smartphones had not even been invented. This is for the first time that networks have more capability than 5G use cases. Today, we are in a position to deliver a lot. There will be a multitude of solutions that will emerge. In spectrum space also, there is a great potential to create initial capacity. FWA, IoT, and Edge Computing would unlock many kinds of solutions in materialising monetisation – and the whole ecosystem has to come together in addressing these areas.”

Telcos: Flip the script now

From the lens of Himanshu Gupta, Country Manager, Telecom Media and Entertainment, HPE India, many monetisation opportunities lie in the telco space. “5G will be evolutionary in the first two to three years and then revolutionary. The second half of this decade will be the time when B2B will pick up momentum and we will start seeing realisation of revenues. As to how telcos can tap this – they will have to become outcome providers and go up the value chain.”

He further sliced this into three horizons.“One, is better connectivity at reliable speeds to customers through better data packs, 5G Boosters, and premium 5G services. Two, bundled entertainment and media etc. at the backend. But ARPUs will be tricky as high-ranking customers will go for premium plans but at the bottom revenues go flat. Selling a productized 5G is another way to monetise it. Telcos can also become CaaS player. Third, would be where telcos start to sell solutions and platforms with open APIs and avenues for developers and software programmers who can talk to telco systems and monetise solutions.”

As to where ISPs jump in this revolution, Rajesh Chharia, President, ISPAI, dissected that real Internet growth started in 2019 through COVID-19. “The pandemic allowed the Internet to grow the way the Internet should proliferate. From students to home connections, a lot changed. Now with FTTH, almost every home is connected with Fibre, drawing good bandwidth for many uses. Now it is a requirement to have the same bandwidth when we get to mobility. 5G satisfies that need. In metros, it is working fine. But in some pockets, there are gaps in speed. It is due to spikes in bandwidth needs in some areas. Content and Video have given a big boost to 5G.”

As he illustrated, fifty years back when Ramayana would play, everyone would be in front of the TV. But now everyone watches a big match on the road, no one rushes to their home for a big content view. In short, there would be a lot of opportunities for 5G in the days to come.

Where is that Killer App?

Where are those two or three killer apps though, Ghosh spurred everyone to think on that.

Mittal felt that there is no killer app right now. “But digital quality is now a quality-of-life index thing. On the consumer side, there is the biggest impact of broadband anywhere and on any device. On the B2B side, there is no single use case. Low latency ability and slicing functions can create some good use cases. Enterprises need three solutions: help them grow, cut their costs, and help in digital transformation. If we can give them that, we will get there. Also, use cases on Metaverse and Digital Twins would be great avenues,” he explained.

Khanna illustrated how Jio has deployed the first private 5G commercial network along with a 5G-enabled test-bed for drones, successful POCs for an American agri manufacturer on fibre backhaul, apps on robotics surgery and mining, as well as an offshore solution for an oil major. “The use cases are ready and I am sure we will see revenue monetisation coming in very soon. What the 5G ecosystem delivers for the B2B segment has never been possible before. As to B2C, 5G creates a super-highway but the money can only be extracted when you have destinations – with applications that engage the customer in newer ways.”

Gupta added that HP has many innovations and IP build-up in emerging areas. “HP has put in a lot of effort to acquire skills around AI, which will come in very critical with 5G use-cases as networks become complex and there is a need for end-to-end service management with the right automation and orchestration. We also provide the most cost-effective architectural blueprints, validated and pre-tested through our partners. These infrastructure stacks and software stacks can reduce a lot of T2M. Wifi6, along with 5G, will also co-exist. So, having a solution for a seamless handshake can come in very useful and we are in a very good position to encapsulate all these services.”

Mittal summed it up best: “We should not be too hard on Telcos. The greatest burden is the burden of potential.”

To wrap it all up,monetisation is a long-haul game. But it will happen. 5G is not just 4G-plus, but a new age and opportunity altogether.

By Pratima Harigunani