While attending a programme in Bhubaneswar, Union Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Sunday said the 5G services will be made available in the state by next year.
As many as eight cities of Odisha will receive 5G network by the end of March, 2023, informed the Minister.
“In the first phase, eight cities of Odisha will get 5G service. By the end of 2023, around 80 percent of the state will be covered. All the big cities will be covered in phase -1 and the service will be subsequently extended to smaller ones and rural areas,” said Vaishanw.
The time set for the first phase launching of 5G service is March, 2023.
Worth mentioning, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the 5G service on October 1 on the occasion of 6th India Mobile Congress at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi.
In the initial phase, the much-awaited network has been launched in 13 cities like Ahmadabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Gandhinagar, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Jamnagar, Kolkata, Chennai, Lucknow, Pune, Delhi and Mumbai.
Once launched, users will get service at a speed of 10 times more than that of 4G and 30 times more than that of 3G.
According to experts, the speed may reach 100 times. Along with it, the users will no longer face downloading issue as 5G would enhance the overall download speed.
For example, if a certain file takes 56 hours to download in 2G network, two hours in 3G network and 40 minutes in 4G network, it will take only 35 seconds in 5G network. From this it can easily be imagined how fast our digital life is going to be ahead.
India is home to more than 500 million smartphone users and over 100 million users with 5G-ready smartphones wish to upgrade to a 5G subscription in 2023, according to a latest Ericsson report.
However, there are multiple challenges ahead for telecom service providers to meet the tough roll-out deadlines.
"In theory, there are use cases out there which really warrant and demand 5G: enterprise solutions, private networks, IoT, logistics. But it could take a year or more for those applications to really take off," Prasanto K. Roy, a leading technology and public policy expert, told IANS.
Telcos will focus on converting existing higher-ARPU (average revenue per user) individual customers to 5G, which really limits how much more they can charge for 5G especially in a competitive space.
"I don't see 5G really bumping up ARPU overall in any significant way at least not in 2023," Roy said.
In the top four metros, consumers should be able to experience 5G in early October (according to Airtel) to late October (according to Reliance Jio), with Airtel planning to take 5G to eight cities this month.
There are no 5G roll out plans from Vodafone-Idea yet.
"However, with tariffs still unclear, I do not know if current 4G customers will all be able to sample a limited trial, or will have to upgrade right away. Although Airtel (and possibly Jio) expects a revenue increase (from its current ARPU of Rs 183), I do not expect most customers to shell out much more for 5G," Roy noted.
The Ericsson study, however, claimed that the Indian smartphone users are willing to pay a 45 per cent premium for a plan bundled with novel experiences, which could be a delight for Internet service providers ready with 5G.
According to Neil Shah, Vice President of Research at Counterpoint, in terms of population coverage, for all operators, India should reach the current blanket 4G coverage by the end of 2024 , way sooner than the 4G or 3G era.
"Jio is in a driver's seat with respect to its peers to likely achieve a pan India 5G network rollout over the next 15 months with no 2G, 3G and 4G baggage," Shah told IANS.
Not only consumers but also enterprises and the public sector will be able to benefit from 5G over the period of next two years.
"Airtel, on the other hand, also has been building a highly upgradeable network to easily reuse the same towers for both 4G and 5G. Most of its key circles should be able to experience 5G by mid-2024," Shah noted.
According to smartphone players, 5G has the potential to bring together the entire ecosystem and online gaming, augmented/virtual reality (AR-VR) experience, along with content creation, will take centre-stage with the launch of 5G services.
"With 5G being officially available now, we are looking forward to exploring the numerous opportunities it provides to us and will be directing our efforts into making this technology even more accessible to users," said Madhav Sheth, CEO realme India, VP, realme and President, realme International Business Group.
According to Roy, infrastructure limitations and limited use cases and revenue also pose great challenges for telcos and smartphone players.
"To really leverage 5G bandwidth and latency, towers are to be connected by fibre. Only a third of them are 'fiberised' so I would expect 5G service to be reserved for large cities until the fiber gets to twice that number of towers," he explained.
Telcos have also struggled with adequate tower density even for 4G, but 5G needs a much higher tower density -- increasing upfront investment.
"All this capex investment would also be limited by the telcos' high debt and stagnant ARPU (revenues), already stretched by spectrum fees and initial 5G investments," according to Roy.
IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw expects telcos to invest Rs 2-3 lakh crore on 5G and 4G in the next two years for better voice quality and high-speed data.
There are also 5G network equipment availability challenges, because of very strict supply chain reporting mandates for cybersecurity and related reasons since June 2021 (called the NSDTS directive).
"This is slowing down approved telecom and IT equipment available for the telcos, or requiring them to apply for case by case exemptions," Roy told IANS.
Using high-speed ultra-low latency 5G network, Vi demonstrated at the Indian Mobile Congress (IMC) 2022 how 5G technology can be used in India for worker safety and efficiency in supervision of critical construction sites such as tunnels, underground working sites, mines etc.
"Vi's first step in the 5G era is an important milestone in India's new generation technology odyssey. Vi stands committed to bring the finest in innovative technology and service offerings to take 1.3 billion Indians on an accelerated journey towards individual and collective growth," said Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairperson, Aditya Birla Group.
With a 3D digital twin of a Delhi Metro tunnel site created on Vi 5G, Modi was able to view it remotely in real-time, and review the working conditions and well-being of the workers deployed at the site.
In partnership with Athonet and Tata Communication Transformation Services (TCTS), the company created the digital twin of the under-construction Delhi Metro site in Dwarka region.
Vi has developed a range of 5G use cases in partnership with technology companies and domain leaders.
The Vi 5G use cases in many verticals such as public safety, connected healthcare with smart ambulance, private networks, IoT connected electric vehicle and autonomous mobile robot, 5G Cloud and immersive gaming and more were showcased at IMC 2022.
While it has widely been discussed that the 5G will have radiation impact, the minister turned it down saying there would be hardly any radiation in 5G.
“Odisha will get 5G service in the very first phase. The amount of radiation it will give forth is 10 times less than the radiation norms set by the World Health Organisation (WHO). People should not worry about it,” the Minister said.
Notably, once launched, users will get service at a speed of 10 times more than that of 4G and 30 times more than that of 3G.
According to experts, the speed may reach 100 times. Along with it, the users will no longer face download issue as 5G would enhance the download speed.
For example, the file which took 56 hours for download in 2G network, two hours in 3G network and 40 minutes in 4G network will take only 35 seconds in 5G network. From this it can easily be imagined how fast our digital life is going to be.
ADNL secured this spectrum for 20 years in the first-ever 5G spectrum auction conducted by the Centre's Telecommunications Department.
The newly-acquired 5G spectrum is expected to help create a unified digital platform that will accelerate the pace and scale of the Adani Group's digitisation of its core infrastructure, primary industry, and B2C business portfolio.
The acceleration of digital enablement will have material long term improvement in the rate of return on assets. Acquiring 400MHz of spectrum is the group's first step in integrating its digital infrastructure portfolio, which includes Data Centres, Terrestrial Fibre and Submarine Cables, Industrial Cloud, AI Innovation Labs, Cybersecurity and SuperApps.
"We must compliment the transparent and efficient process of this first 5G multi-band multi-round multi-player spectrum auction. It is a great manifestation of the digital expertise our government brings in the journey to an Atmanirbhar Bharat. 5G solves our nation's connectivity needs in unprecedented ways and will be crucial in helping us prepare the IT infrastructure we need for the future," said Gautam Adani, Chairman of the Adani Group.
"The Adani Group's foray into the industrial 5G space will allow our portfolio companies to offer a set of new add on services that capitalises on all the other digital segments we are building. Given that our portfolio is a highly distributed asset intensive investment that are all being revolutionised by sensorisation and fast becoming IoT enabled, we believe the next data surge will be created more by machines than by people as all devices get interconnected. This data will need to be streamed, stored, processed, and analysed by other machines in real time and this capability will change every single industry. It will help build a set of services that the market cannot even fully conceptualize today. This volume will be exponentially higher and generated at the edges, especially in a country like India, where the Tier 2 and 3 cities are witnessing the fastest all-round growth."
The Group's broader strategy to digitally integrate its current and future businesses includes linking its Data Centres through a network of submarine and terrestrial cables, building the largest industrial operations cloud in the world, developing the super app to offer a suite of services across its consumer base of 400 million, and establishing a world-class AI centre of excellence.
Prime Minister Modi dedicated an indigenous 5G Test Bed, in the form of 5Gi, to the nation during an event organised by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
"The launch of India's first 5G Test Bed will spur an ecosystem centred around innovation in next-gen technologies. Start-ups will now be able to test and validate their technological prototypes, products, and solutions locally in a 5G network," Prabhu Ram, Head-Industry Intelligence Group (IIG), CMR, told IANS.
Modi said that the 5G technology will facilitate governance and make a positive change in ease of doing business in many fields, creating more jobs in many sectors.
According to Tarun Pathak, Research Director, Counterpoint Research, it proves that Indigenisation is possible in an emerging and latest tech like 5G.
"This should give a boost to local talent and further support and strengthen India's image in emerging technologies which will be built on a strong 5G ecosystem," Pathak told IANS.
Modi said that the 2G era was full of frustration, corruption and policy paralysis.
"After that, we came to 3G, 4G and now we are testing the 5G technology, developed by the Communication Ministry, Indian Institute of Technology at Chennai and Delhi," the Prime Minister said.
Arvind Bali, CEO, Telecom Sector Skill Council, said that for adopting new tech and infrastructure, skilling along with reskilling/upskilling of the workforce will ensure that the human resource requirement is sufficient when 5G services are live.
"We, along with all stakeholders, is already driving training of workforce in new-age technologies and has developed NSQF-aligned courses with unified credit framework on 5G technology that will be recognised in universities and institutions to meet this huge upcoming demand in trained talent force when the time comes," said Bali.
Giving a thrust on domestic manufacturing, Modi also said that mobile manufacturing units have increased from just two in 2014 to more than 200 in the country.
Experts said that the next challenge is to drive true local value addition.
"This will be driven by a strong regulatory and policy environment and performance-linked incentive (PLI) scheme. India currently has local value addition of around 15 per cent in mobile and we need to more than double the same to generate more push," said Pathak.
Ram added that mobile manufacturing in India has been an impressive success story of the 'Make in India' mission.
"Mobile production in India today caters to not just a growing domestic digital economy, but also to developed markets around the world. With enhanced value addition taking place domestically, India is now slowly becoming an integral part of the global value chains," Ram told IANS.
Low latency helps in streaming a very high volume of data with minimal delay.
Besides, some IoT solutions such as cloud gaming, wearable devices which can access workplaces remotely, and drones for inventory management in warehouses were displayed at the telecom operator's Network Experience Center in Haryana's Manesar.
It also demonstrated immersive video experiences and India's first 5G-powered hologram of former India cricketer Kapil Dev, and recreated the in-stadia experience of his unbeaten 175 not out against Zimbabwe during the 1983 World Cup. Reportedly, there is no video footage available for that particular match due to a strike by TV technicians at that particular time.
With speeds of over 1 gbps and latency of under 20 ms, more than 50 users seamlessly enjoyed a highly personalized 4K video experience of the re-created match on 5G smartphones, with real-time access to multiple camera angles, 360-degree in-stadia view, and shot analysis.
It is expected that an auction for 5G spectrum would be conducted within the next two months and the formal launch of the service later this year - possibly around Independence Day.
"With today's demonstration, we have only scratched the surface of the infinite possibilities of 5G and highly personalised immersive experiences in the digital world. With 5G based holograms, we will be able to transport virtual avatars to any location and this will be a game changer for meetings and conferences, LIVE news and will have so many other use cases," said Randeep Sekhon, Chief Technology Officer of Bharti Airtel.
"Airtel is fully prepared for 5G in this emerging digital world and is building a solid pipeline of innovative use cases for India," he added.
Airtel is joining forces with technology companies such as Accenture, AWS, CISCO, Ericsson, Google Cloud, Nokia, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to work with industry leading brands such as Apollo Hospitals, Flipkart and several leading manufacturing companies to test 5G-based solutions.
"The 5G ecosystem will open limitless possibilities for enterprises to enhance productivity and serve their customers even better with digitally enabled applications," said Randeep Singh Sekhon, CTO, Bharti Airtel.
These solutions, said the company, will be deployed on 5G test spectrum allotted to Airtel and include use cases like smart factory, smart healthcare, 5G-powered quality inspection, digital twin, connected frontline workforce and AR/VR based use cases, among others.
The use case demonstrations will be conducted both at end-user locations and at Airtel's advanced 5G lab in Network Experience Centre at Manesar in Gurgaon.
Earlier this year Airtel demonstrated India's first 5G experience over a Live 4G network.
It has also demonstrated India's first rural 5G trial as well as the first cloud gaming experience on 5G.
Airtel is also spearheading the O-RAN Alliance initiatives in India to build 5G solutions and has announced partnerships with Tata Group, Qualcomm, Intel, Mavenir and Altiostar.
"The DoT has received good inputs on 5G in the new telecom policy or NTP 2018 which is yet to be unveiled. The draft of the NTP 2018 is in final stages and will be put in public soon," Sundararajan, chairperson, Telecom Commission and Secretary, DoT, said while inaugurating an Assocham Summit on Connected Devices-Connected World conference.
Sundararajan said the networks were not only accelerating the roll-out of the 4G but were getting ready for 5G.
"I expect that by the end of the next financial year, we will have pan India 4G coverage barring a few pockets. The right regulatory framework is the key to create an enabling environment for connected device," she said.
On the issue of call drop, the secretary said the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has brought a new regulatory regime under which there are stringent norms for call drops that need to be followed by the telecom companies.
Regarding in-flight connectivity, Sundararajan said: "We are moving towards getting approvals for in-flight connectivity but cannot give any time frame for the final approval, however, the discussions are on right track."
"India is getting future ready and has started serious work on identifying and formalising the standards for the rollout of 5G. The standards are likely to be ready by 2018," said D.P. De, Senior Deputy Director General of Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC), at the 5G India 2017 Conference here.
"5G will be an overarching umbrella of networks rather than a replacement technology and will usher in significant economic, political and environmental benefits," observed Adrian Scrase, Chief Technical Officer, ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) and Head of 3GPP MCC (Mobile Competence Core).
According to industry representatives and sectoral experts, the key drivers for 5G rollout and adoption will be a massively anticipated increase in data consumption, fast increasing digitalised life and services, growth of smart cities and the need to have an all encompassing network architecture which can utilise all available spectrum band rather than replace the existing networks, said an official statement.
"Connected devices, digitised lifestyle where almost every aspect of human life will be consumed digitally calls for a new paradigm shift in telecommunication eco-system," said Shyam P. Mardikar, Chief Technical Officer (Mobile Networks), Bharti Airtel.
"We have moved from the voice phase to video consumption and the next phase will be virtuality which will demand humongous data availability and networks have to evolve to keep pace. This will be a real challenge."
Rajan S. Mathews, Director General, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), said: "Consumers side demand, resource deployment and commercial viability will be the main drivers for the operators for 5G rollout."
"It may be easy to rollout 5G in a country like Japan or South Korea, but India is a fundamentally different market with diverse needs. There would be huge financial and structural challenges. We have to make India specific case for 5G," advised Mathews.
The statement said experts across the board agreed that the telecommunication services will migrate to 5G architecture sooner or later, and time has come to start serious preparation for standardisation and network upgradation.
"Making 5G India 2017 a truly global platform to conduct business, global players such as Huawei, VMWare, Keysight Technologies, Juniper, RedHat, Rohde & Schwarz, RV Solutions and TrustinSoft showcased and presented their innovative and cutting edge technologies to 500 plus industry audience at the event," the statement added.
TEC is the nodal agency of the Department of Telecommunications in the Ministry of Communications, and is responsible for drawing up of standards, generic requirements, interface requirements, service requirements and specifications for telecom products, services and networks.
Technology titans Nadella and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, the two schoolmates from Hyderabad, also gave a glimpse of the data initiative that was announced in 2018 by Microsoft with Adobe and SAP as the next big thing.
"I am very excited about ODI (Open Data Initiative)," said Nadella highlighting at the Adobe Summit here how close the project is to his heart and how 5G streaming and mixed reality with touch, gaze and speech functions across all platforms is the most significant technology enhancements in the future.
"The most important asset that everyone in this room has is data, which is yours. Except it is locked up in silos. The partnership we formed with SAP was to unlock this data and help each of you enrich it," said Nadella in conversation with Narayen at the summit attended by 16,000 participants.
ODI is aimed at allowing customers to exploit data in a more comprehensive manner.
The three companies intend to create a data lake chosen by the customers enabling the companies to provide real time solutions.
Adobe Experience Cloud, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Office 365 and SAP C/4HANA form this data bank is enriched by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).
Unilever, one of the first big companies to go on ODI announced at the summit it will get rid of plastic packaging and shift to recycled products completely by 2025 with the help of AI driven processing.
Based on Nadella's vision, Microsoft's HoloLens2 makes mixed reality experience more instinctual and human combining touch, gaze and voice, showing mark improvement from HoloLens1, which was more of an experiment.
The strength of radio frequency (RF) signals fields is highest at its source and as deployment of 5G would lead to more mobile antennas, there are fears of more radiation leading to poor health.
Experts are, however, of the opinion that there are not much reasons to fear as long as India follows the standards of safety set by regulatory authorities that are followed in Europe and other developed nations.
The World Health Organization has also played down the fears associated with exposure to RF signals. The only health effect from RF fields identified in scientific reviews has been related to an increase in body temperature from exposure at very high field intensity and this minor increase in temperature do not affect human health, according to the WHO.
"The term 'radiation' has a tendency to lead to confusion and cause fear and misconceptions. However, radiation is of two types - ionising and non-ionising. Non-ionising radiations which are found in mobile devices have not proved to be harzardous for human health," Vaibhav Mishra, Additional Director, Department of Cardiac Surgery, Fortis Hospital Noida, told IANS.
"It is the ionising radiations which one needs to be careful of. For example - the UV (ultraviolet) rays emitted by the sun are ionising in nature and can cause significant damage to our cell structures," Mishra added.
"The reason this question is being asked is because 5G will have a higher speed, therefore require more radiation. But there is no long term data or study which concludes that there will be a negative impact on human body from the 5G radiation," Mishra said.
Tarun Sahni from Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals in New Delhi pointed out that many devices like ECG electrodes, pacemakers, ultrasounds emit targeted high frequency radiowaves.
"Devices using high frequency radio waves are used for multiple purposes, besides their use in smartphones. But the evidence is not strong enough to suggest that these radiowaves are causing any big risk to human health," said Sahni, Senior Consultant, Internal Medicine.
He, however, cautioned that anything used at an extreme degree has the potential to cause some impairment. "Even if there is a risk, it's very minimal," he added.
According to T.V. Ramachandran, President, Broadband India Forum, an association of the telecom network and broadcasters, far from affecting our health adversely, 5G will improve healthcare services.
"As far as impact of radiation on health is concerned, we have done enough work on that area and I can tell you that similar concerns were raised when 3G and 4G were rolled out. People with inadequate understanding are raising these issues," Ramachandran said.
"There is nothing at all to be worried about the radiation," he said, adding that whatever research has been done so far has not shown any problem due to the higher frequencies.
On the other hand, as 5G has got some properties like very low latency and very high speed and bandwidth, it can help improve medical care.
"For example, if you want to do remote robotic surgery, it may takes some milliseconds for your commands to reach the recipient. And if you ask the robot to cut a particular part of the body, and if there is a delay of 10 seconds, it may cut the wrong place. But with 5G this delay which is called latency is reduced to less than 1 millisecond. So that can bring brilliant advancement in healthcare," Ramachandran added.
"The primary concern in 5G roll out is security. 5G is important because of the scale of impact it can have on the economy and human life in general," said V. Kamakoti, while delivering a lecture at Indian Council of World Affairs here.
With the roll out of 5G, transmission speed could be many times higher than 4G and services such as collaborative manufacturing and remote surgery could be possible.
But in case bad actors exploit any vulnerability in the system, there could be data leakage and denial of services.
"When it comes to national security, we cannot take any chances," he added.
While he said that it would not be advisable to skip rolling out 5G altogether fearing security issues, India, should nevertheless start pushing the indigenisation of technology.
"While indigenisation cannot be achieved overnight, there should be a concrete plan for indigenisation from day one and policy makers should have an India-specific 5G roll out model," he said, while addressing a packed house.
While deploying 5G, it is especially important not to have the software and hardware from the same vendor, explained the professor of computer science and engineering.
"Indigenous microprocessors and nano sensor design research and development and its mandatory use need to be encouraged," Kamakoti said.
The professor recommended that the government step forward to nurture indigenisation and create Indian tech giants with the necessary enabling mechanism from the government to support their sustenance.
"Identify promising Indian 5G equipment industries and source-fund them," he said, giving examples of Signalchips, Nivetti and Tejas Networks.
"Chip-fund should be monitored by a committee coordinated by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology," he said, adding that to ensure security India should also have printed circuit board testing facility for supply chain vulnerabilities.
According to Kamakoti, while the government should take care to maintain existing Indian infrastructure such as BSNL and MTNL, it is also time for India to start planning for a 6G network.
"We are thankful to the Indian government for its continued trust and support towards Huawei. We believe it is the expectation of the industry that all vendors and participants should come to this premier show with their latest solutions showcase. This is also the format on which IMC has been designed. We will continue to collectively showcase our leading solutions along with all other participants to make IMC a success," Huawei India CEO Jay Chen told IANS.
The government's nod for Huawei to participate in demo with the operators like Airtel and VodafoneIdea ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meeting at Chennai on October 11.
Asked if Huawei is looking forward to Xi taking up the Huawei approval issue for the 5G trials with the Indian government, Chen said: "Huawei is not privy to any government-to-government level talks, so we cannot really comment on the upcoming visit. Huawei believes that the Indian government will make independent and fair decision on 5G for the long-term benefit of India, based on verifiable facts and technical data rather than ideology or a vendor's country of origin."
The nod for IMC showcase participation came even as the government is yet to take a decision on allowing the firm to participate in the upcoming 5G field trials.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has assigned telecom service providers with spectrum in the 3400-3600 Mhz band range to demonstrate India-specific 5G technology-use cases along with their vendor partners, which include Huawei as well. It is understood that Huawei will be partnering with VodafoneIdea and Airtel at the event.
Recently Huawei got big support from the country's top operator Airtel, when Bharti Group Chairman Sunil Mittal, at the global forum of World Economic Forum's India summit, said: "My view is they should be in play, Huawei over the last 10 or 12 years has become extremely good with their product, to a point where I can safely say today their product ... is significantly superior to Ericsson and Nokia." He added that Airtel has been using equipment from all three companies in its 3G and 4G networks.
Mittal's endorsement came right after US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross stressed the US administration's view that Huawei poses a security risk - claims the company has repeatedly denied - and urged India to take the threat seriously.
India is still planning its 5G networks, which it aims to roll out by next year, and has not yet ruled out Huawei's involvement.
Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told lawmakers in June that Huawei was among six companies that had submitted proposals to participate in the 5G trials, and a special committee has been appointed to examine potential security concerns.