India Mobile Congress 2018 Day 1: India Prepares For 5G Networks

India Mobile Congress 2018 is taking place in Delhi from 25 October to 27 October

India Mobile Congress 2018 kicks off in Delhi.

(Photo: The Quint)

The second edition of the India Mobile Congress has kicked off in Delhi and on the agenda primarily is 5G and the future of Indian telecom.

Over the years focus has shifted more towards the enterprise side of technology and the same seems to be the theme of this year’s event, “Connecting the Next Billion” .

The 3-day event is going to focus around technology such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, cyber-security, smart-homes/cities and home automation.

Samsung Showcases 5G Prowess

Samsung is showcasing its 5G-powered ecosystem that revolves around homes, cities and agriculture use cases to give us a reality check on how the next generation connectivity will work out.

The South Korean giant also announced its plan for India’s first large-scale 5G trial scheduled to take place in the first quarter of 2019 in collaboration with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

It’s a tech carnival at IMC 2018.(Photo: The Quint)

India Will Be a Fully-4G Country by 2020

Chairman of Reliance Jio, Mukesh Ambani, spoke at the inauguration of the IMC and is confident that India will be a fully-4G ready country by 2020.

India has moved from 155th rank in mobile broadband penetration to being the number 1 nation in mobile data consumption in the world in less than two years. This is the fastest transition anywhere in the world from 2G/3G to 4G.

Mukesh Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Jio

He also added that India will be 5G-ready ahead of others. He said every phone in India will soon be a 4G-enabled phone and every customer will have access to 4G connectivity soon.

Facebook at Indian Mobile Congress 2018.(Photo: The Quint)

Clearly India is gearing up to lead the race to connect via 5G as early as possible. Having said that it'll be too early to say when the consumer will get a taste of the next-generation mobile connectivity technology, with businesses likely to be the target users for it initially.

There's a lot riding on how the telecom operators want to go ahead with this. Most of this will rely on affordable spectrum pricing, as highlighted by Sunil Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Airtel on the sidelines of the India Mobile Congress 2018.

Airtel has displayed its array of 5G-enabled solutions. The telecom operator has unveiled something called Airtel 3.0, which basically caters to a connectivity-based ecosystem that comprises of connected home, connected car, AR-based holographic communication and VR-based experiences.