Let’s bell this cat

5G holds the promise of a turning point for enterprises, innovators, researchers, consumers, and all. But we need to keep some sign-boards in mind.

By Pratima Harigunani

Did you know that when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, no one saw its full potential, including Bell himself? Western Union’s executives shrugged it as ‘an electrical toy’. Did you know Bell’s patent number 174,465 became the single most valuable patent ever granted? But even more surprising is the fact that he merely put together the components that had existed for over thirty years and a German schoolteacher Philipp Reis had built a prototype device in 1861 itself – albeit, it did not really work because it lacked the dust and dirt required to transmit speech with stellar fidelity.

Reis had kept his equipment meticulously spic and span and, thus, never knew he had come so close to a working equipment. Did you know that Bell beat Elisha Gray with just a few hours in filing a proper patent? It was his comrade Thomas A Watson that did something really useful for expanding the functionality and reach of this invention, the patent for the distinctive ringing bell. Yes, because, believe it or not, before that, the only way to know if someone was trying to reach you was to pick up the phone every now and then.

Besides, it was theatrical engineer Henry Dreyfuss who actually changed the ‘candlestick’ phone to the sleek and boxy modern design on which the handset could rest easily, and which allowed the user to handle the hearing and speaking functions from a single handset.

Agreed, a lot of these sentences may sound wispy and wooly. Amusing, but too amusing to be true. However, as humorous as Bill Bryson is, he does put in a lot of research in his books – so turns out that all these things about communication that we take for granted actually began somewhere.

Incidentally, nothing much has changed between the 1800s and 2021. Patents, user-friendliness, finding a solution-orientation to an invention, design and convenience – they still matter to translate any big idea into a well-sprawled utility.

5G is where we are meeting a Reis, a Bell, a Gray, a Watson, and a Dreyfuss all over again. And looking at the big-steep road that India has chosen here, we need all those elements in a strong way. From the right patents, the right design to the right application. Everything counts now.

“The 5G trials in India must now be seen from the perspective of use-case validation and co-existence of 5G infrastructure with existing networks.”

Randeep Raina, CTO, Nokia India

The race has begun

India is currently the world’s second-largest telecommunications market and continues to register strong growth, which clearly shows the country’s appetite for a faster next-generation technology.

Ask Nitin Bansal, Head of Ericsson India and Head of Network Solutions Ericsson South East Asia, Oceania, and India and he says that 5G is the answer to unlock India’s potential in reaching the next phase of growth and realizing the government’s Digital India vision.

A fresh report from ResearchandMarkets also affirms that 5G network technology is predicted to accelerate the digital growth of India. Ultra-fast speed, high bandwidth, and low latency of 5G could accelerate the digital transformation of the country. The 5G market in India is projected to be valued at INR32.43 billion by 2020 and is estimated to reach INR19,053.09 billion by 2025, expanding at a CAGR of 96.69% during the 2021 to 2025 period. The auction of 5G spectrum by TRAI was scheduled in the second quarter of 2020; but has been deferred until late 2020, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the report points out.

“While India remains the market with the highest usage per smartphone per month across the globe at 15.7 GB per month (2020), it is expected to grow to 37 GB per month by 2026. 5G, in the initial phase, will be able to manage the increasing levels of data traffic. Enhanced mobile broadband, then, will be a way for service providers to manage the cost and the quality for end-users. This will help improve the customer expectations and experience with faster speeds, better reliability, and lower latency than 5G will bring. Over time, new and innovative 5G use cases will emerge in the areas of 5G for business and IoT.” Bansal adds.

Main 5G enablers, as per industry reports too, can be counted on one’s fingers. These include sustainable pricing of spectrum, stable policy and regulatory landscape, and innovative use cases. Agriculture, automotive, manufacturing, healthcare, energy and utilities, and media and entertainment are likely to be the potential end-user industries of 5G, the ResearchandMarkets report indicates.

Today India is among the leaders of mobile broadband its users are enjoying among one the highest usage per month adds Randeep Raina, CTO, Nokia India. He emphasizes that with its global experience and expertise, Nokia is ready to enable 5G in India. “We are already manufacturing the latest 5G technology at our Chennai factory. Our Bangalore R&D center focuses on next-generation technologies like cloud, big data analytics, next-generation core, IP, optical and 5G. Our Global Delivery Centers in India are ready to support telecom operator customers in India to help them scale for the launch of 5G in the country. More than ten 5G networks globally are currently supported by GDC India. This includes support across network planning, deployment, and technical support,” he says.

Bansal underlines that Ericsson is a market leader when it comes to living 5G networks. “Pioneering customers have chosen us as their 5G partner across the globe and we were the first ones to have deployed commercial live networks across four continents. As of now, we have 138 commercial 5G agreements and 85 live 5G networks globally. We have the right 5G portfolio in place to enable our customers to deploy 5G networks in all main frequency bands and utilize their valuable spectrum assets in the fastest and the most efficient way. This is proven in live networks with the best performance results, so our customers have every opportunity to be ahead with 5G.”

So, from our perspective, we are ready for 5G rollouts, he declares confidently.

“5G is the answer to unlock India’s potential in reaching the next phase of growth and realizing the government’s Digital India vision.”

Nitin Bansal, Managing Director, India & Head-Networks, South East Asia,

Oceania and India, Ericsson

Trials –Dipping one toe before the dive

Pilots and on-ground trials would be a good way to unlock all the 5G potential that the industry is betting so much on. India’s Department of Telecom (DoT) has recently approved applications of telecom companies Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, and MTNL for the conduct of 5G trials, for six month period, including time for procurement and setting up of equipment.

Pilots seem like the right way for a lot of entities and experts to step forward in the 5G direction. They would, after all, help to test the waters on many dimensions before investing in anything at a scale and till the last mile.

Raina explains the significance of the pilot approach. “Global 5G trials and pilots began as early as 2017 and Nokia has been actively participating across the countries. While earlier, the motivation of the India 5G trial was to validate the technology, it may not be relevant anymore given that there are over 150 commercial 5G networks deployed globally and there are more than 500 commercial devices available for use. However, these trials must now be seen from the perspective of use-case validation and co-existence of 5G infrastructure with existing networks. This will help service providers and equipment suppliers to fine-tune their 5G strategy to align with on-field realities and end-user expectations.”

Ericsson echoes that approach. “We have been working with our operator partners as well as the academia community to test and develop various 5G use cases that are relevant for the market. To that effect, Ericsson and Qualcomm successfully collaborated at the India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2019 to showcase India’s first-ever live 5G video call using a 28 GHz spectrum. Ericsson took the lead at the IMC 2019 to demonstrate the reliability, speed, and low latency of 5G through the Connected Music use case apart from the use case it demonstrated with Qualcomm,” Bansal says.

He also highlighted that the company partnered with Bharti Airtel to demonstrate 5G on a live network in Hyderabad. “Leveraging Ericsson’s dynamic spectrum sharing technology, Airtel gave India its first experience of 5G over a commercial network,” he adds.

“At Ericsson, we are ready to switch on 5G for India as soon as the spectrum is made available. As mentioned earlier, our radio system hardware has been 5G-ready since 2015 enabling operators to upgrade to 5G with a remote software installation. We will partner with our customers to develop 5G use cases in the coming months,” Bansal highlights.

Raina shares that Nokia is collaborating with industry players to develop futurist use cases in the field of extreme mobile broadband and critical communications. “We were the first to integrate Partner Application into Nokia’s Live 5G NR System in India for the first time ever.”

It’s about time that India pushes the pedals on proper and swift experimentation because the opportunity of 5G cannot be postponed anymore.

India consumes 11 GB of data per month per user, on average and the current broadband technology has to catch up on adequate infrastructure to meet this demand. That's where 5G has enormous potential to fill the gaps of existing 4G LTE technology like low mobility speed, high latency, and capital intensive deployment, thanks to high data speed that improves mobility and user experience, ResearchandMarkets report points out.

Furthermore, less than one millisecond latency satisfies the acute criteria of industrial and IoT applications. Highly-reliable and secured 5G network is crucial to support the budding IoT landscape in India. The mass adoption of IoT devices and applications is projected to foster the 5G market in India.

A GSMA report of 2020 advised that the Indian government should initiate the process of including the new mmWave bands in the National Frequency Allocation Plan (NFAP) and make the timeline for spectrum release available to industry stakeholders as soon as possible.

“Spectrum set-asides need to be carefully considered, as they could jeopardise the success of public 5G services and may prove to be an inefficient use of spectrum. Sharing approaches such as leasing are better options where verticals require access to the spectrum. Government of India and regulators can encourage high levels of investment by adopting the following two policies; support for exclusive, long-term 5G mobile licenses and ensuring all mobile licenses are technology-neutral to speed up wide-area 5G rollouts and encourage improved spectrum efficiency,” the report states.

High levels of network investment, the costs of recent market consolidation, and deferred spectrum liabilities have, as per this reckoner, left the industry with significant debt levels that hinder operators’ ability to invest in new technology. “Indian operators are now looking at 5G to expand beyond their traditional telecoms businesses and explore new revenue streams amid a fast-changing competitive landscape. A key challenge, however, will be funding the investments needed to deploy 5G.”

Beg, borrow or buy

There is one more challenge that will haunt soon, if not right away. According to Muzammil Hassan, Head, IP Licensing and Commercialization Department, GreyB, when companies plan to launch 5G they should be cognizant of the players that can create challenges because it can affect their overall and long-term costs.

“From an IP person’s perspective, I feel that the research or patent muscle here would be quite significant. As companies like Jio or Airtel roll out their trials, they would rely on infrastructure from other companies. Huawei may be banned from direct 5G play, but would the same work for infrastructure needs? Most telcos may not be deep-end experts in 5G and might need help from others to do justice to 5G if they have not actively developed 5G. This can affect the overall quality of 5G,” he says.

Incidentally, most telcos with their pilots planned and underway would be depending on companies that are not allowed in this space. This could create potential challenges of license fees and its spill-over effects on what the customer ultimately pays, he warns.

Bansal avers that open standards and patent licensing are critical to success in the whole 5G ecosystem. “They are important enablers of the growth in the 5G and IoT area. Ericsson is leading 5G standardization with most contributions for 4G and 5G and when counting declarations to ETSI, applying an essentiality filter, results in Ericsson being on top of 5G patent race. We started to lead the industry discussions around 5G as early as 2011, scoping out 5G services and requirements, and researching and developing the 5G technical concept. During the development of 5G/NR between 2016 and 2020, we have had the biggest impact on technical specifications with 37% of the specification text coming from contributions co-authored by Ericsson. This is almost twice the additions by any other company.”

Raina points out how 4G/LTE networks were fully harmonized across the globe which helped us to connect millions of Indians at very affordable ARPU levels. “On 5G also, the role of the globally harmonized spectrum will remain critical. 3GPP has already completed work on Release 15 which defines base standards for 5G network deployment. The recent completion of Release 16 enables the evolution of use cases through 5G networks. 3GPP fulfills and meets the deployment requirement of all scenarios from dense urban places like Delhi and Mumbai to rural places in a vast part of rural India. India must embrace these 3GPP standards for 5G harmonized with the global ecosystem to ensure that we start our 5G journey in the same spirit as we had started our journey from 2G to 3G and 4G technologies.”

Hassan feels that the back-end is equally important when the industry is getting all excited about the 5G roll-out. “How many companies will have the IP protection? How many are investing in early licensing? How many will make sure that patent or license or standards’ issues will not halt their services in the long run? These are salient points to consider and current players should spend some time in understanding the IP landscape here.”

Interestingly, Ericsson has executed a recent handshake with Samsung. “We are pleased that we could reach a mutually fair and reasonable agreement that will allow us to focus on bringing new technology to the global market. The deal confirms the value of Ericsson’s patent portfolio and further illustrates our commitment to FRAND principles,” Bansal shares. FRAND, by the way, means fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory principles that lead to a voluntary commitment that standards’ forums and industry bodies can request from the owner of an IP.

“The back-end is equally important during the 5G roll-out. How many companies will have the IP protection? How many are investing in early licensing?”

Muzammil Hassan, Head – IP Licensing & Commercialization Department, GreyB

From 5 to 6: Too early, too late?

So if everything goes well and if we crack the standards/IP parts also, should we just jump in or take a dive with a long horizon in mind? Thinking about 6G-readiness – shall we?

Would it be the right time to plan for the big 6G hop while we tighten out laces for 5G? Hassan dismisses that idea. “A large part of the 5G work has to be published so it would be too early to comment if 6G would be here any soon. 5G is still under development and research. Although Ericsson, Samsung, and Panasonic, etc. have published some work on 6G, it’s more to create a buzz. I would still argue that 5G is far from completion. It will take a lot of years to do that” he argues.

Raina opines that as 5G deployments are getting rolled out globally, the research is moving towards 6G, and the time is right to provide a vision to shape that research. “According to Nokia’s 6G white paper, new themes are likely to emerge that will shape 6G system requirements and technologies, such as new man-machine interfaces created by a collection of multiple local devices acting in unison; ubiquitous universal computing distributed among multiple local devices and the cloud; multi-sensory data fusion to create multi-verse maps and new mixed-reality experiences, and precision sensing and actuation to control the physical world.”

He illustrates how Nokia is moving ahead in this direction already. “In December 2020, Nokia partnered to head the European Commission’s 6G research initiative, project Hexa-X, to help lay the foundation for the next generation of wireless and drive the 6G roadmaps. Recently, Nokia joined the US National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Resilient and Intelligent Next-Generation Systems (RINGS) program that aims for 6G with the launch of its single largest public-private partnership program, enlisting nine cloud, tech, and telecom heavyweights to help academics develop the technologies that will define next-generation networks.”

Looks exciting? But right now, the road of 5G is busy with enough bumps of its own. The commercial launch of 5G is thwarted by the high price of the 5G spectrum, high Capex, and lack of infrastructure and data security concerns. There are many other needs like fiberized towers, network densification, and specialized base station, all adding up to huge investments for telecom players.

As per initial estimates, Vodafone Idea Limited, Bharti Airtel Limited and Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited together would need to cough up a capital expenditure of around INR2.1 trillion over the next five years for 5G infrastructure. To add to that the delay caused by the pandemic is going to hurt 5G roll-out plans too. Apart from the pause button on the 5G spectrum auction, otherwise scheduled in June 2020, 3GPP has also delayed the release of 5G standards. We could, hence, be watching a ripple effect of holding back the production of infrastructure equipment and devices.

The future called 5G

5G has to start soon. Where it moves to, that’s something that can only be discovered when we make these first few somersaults.

India has a lot to hope for and bet on. Ask Raina and he confidently sketches the contours of what’s about to shape next. “Like all new technology adoption curves, 5G adoption is also expected to follow a similar trend as 4G. Early adopters will be high ARPU and high aspiration users, such users are limited in India as compared to global peers. However, India is in a unique position to tap into vast unconnected fixed broadband markets through 5G as a day-1 offering. 5G data rates can rival the fiber-to-home experience. Global regulators ensured policies and rules updated to allow smooth deployment of 5G-infrastructure in areas where the deployment is needed to cater for FWA.”

Interestingly, GSMA estimates that mmWave-enabled 5G will deliver USD150 billion in additional GDP for India between 2025 and 2040. The manufacturing sector could be embracing the greatest impact, accounting for about a fifth. Also, the healthcare sector could be a surprise corner as it can gain a lot from mmWave-enabled 5G, with an impact of approximately USD4 billion. In fact, GSMA Intelligence forecasts 5G connections in India to reach 6% of the total population by 2025 (72 million) and 93% by 2040.

5G, as per GSMA’s report, will enable new use-cases not possible with previous technological standards. Its forecast focuses on four main areas: enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), massive Internet of Things (MIoT), fixed wireless access (FWA), and ultra-reliable, low-latency communications (URLLC). That should be surprising but not shocking. We may have not even conceived the actual application potential of 5G yet.

Another amusing anecdote about the telephone is that while the first installation began in 1877, the real breakthrough happened only in the following year, after the invention of the switchboard. Phones, initially, were just used to provide weather or stock market reports. If someone told people to use it for gossip or chatting they would have laughed.

Are we also laughing at a lot of possibilities of 5G?

VIL, Bharti Airtel and RJio together would need to cough up a capital expenditure of around INR2.1 trillion over the next five years for 5G infrastructure.

The 5G factoids

Over the period 2023–2040, 5G technologies will make an overall contribution of approximately USD450 billion to the Indian economy (0.6% of GDP by 2040).

The manufacturing sector is set to benefit the most from 5G applications, accounting for 20% of the total benefit, followed by retail (12%) and ICT (11%).

5G networks need a mix of spectrum across low (i.e. sub-1 GHz), mid (e.g. 3.5 GHz), and high (e.g. mmWave) bands.

India’s National Digital Communications Policy (NDCP) provides the plan of USD100 billion investments in India to enhance the country’s digital infrastructure and support the next generation of digital services. The aim is to realize the USD1 trillion economy dream.

By 2025, India is projected to become the second-largest smartphone market in the world. GSMA Intelligence forecasts that another 190 million mobile internet users will come online by 2025.

The assignment of 5G mmWave spectrum – with the 26, 28, and 40 GHz bands as priorities and, in years to come, the 50 and 66–71 GHz bands – will provide the increased bandwidth and capacity required by 5G use cases.

Use cases of 5G in India

Agriculture: High-speed data transfer in agricultural drones, smart irrigation, precision farming, and monitoring of soil, crop, and livestock.

Automotive: Acceleration for connected cars, V2X (vehicle to everything), autonomous driving, and smart transportation system.

Manufacturing: Connected and smart factories with synchronized planning, smart supply-chain network, and smart logistic operations.

Healthcare: Internet of medical things (IoMT), connected healthcare, patient data management, and online consultation.

Smart cities: Major smart city applications of 5G are anticipated to be smart utility management systems, smart grids, and metering systems, smart traffic management systems, smart traffic lights, video surveillance and analytics, and waste management.

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