If you are going gaga over the arrival of 5G in your vicinity in India anytime soon so that you can download a Netflix original in a jiffy or avoid constant buffering as you share videos on social media, take heart.
Despite tall claims made by the government, the 5G technology that is gaining momentum fast globally may take at least another 5-6 years to reach the masses in India - for the simple reason that even 5G spectrum allocation is yet to take place for full-fledged trials.
According to IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, spectrum auctions will be held in this calendar year and the trials for 5G services with radio waves allotted by the ministry will commence in the next 100 day.
This does not sound very promising, if we look at how the things are currently moving.
The entire 5G ecosystem, which involves original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), infrastructure, spectrum and edge devices, is currently missing and in such a scenario, various 5G-enabled devices that are now set to see the light of day are redundant for the Indian consumers.
We expect 5G to reach mainstream in India in 2023 and mass market starting 2025 or so,Neil Shah, Research Director, Counterpoint Research to IANS
"This will, however, be much earlier compared to 3G and 4G era which took at least seven to eight years in India since the first global commercialisation for each generation of tech curves," Shah added.
Although India is targeting 2020 for 5G rollout, the country is yet to allocate 5G spectrum to operators even for 5G trial of use cases.
On individual level, 5G trials are slowly picking up with Ericsson, Nokia, Intel and Huawei aiming to invest towards 5G test beds in India.
According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), commercial 5G deployments have begun in many regions and while 2019 is very much an introductory year at best, 2020 looks to be the year where 5G begins to ramp up. Currently, South Korea, China, Japan, Australia and the US are leading with 5G large-scale mass deployment.
When it comes to pricing, it might look different, said Shah, adding that it will be driven by consumption patterns, mostly based on type of content and applications.
While Reliance Jio has mentioned few times that data prices of 5G speeds won’t be too different from the current 4G rates, it’ll all depend on how the Indian government prices its spectrum from 5G networks.
We even got a hands-on understanding of where 5G network can be implemented, showcased at the Indian Mobile Congress last year. And later this year, we’ll probably get a better idea as to when and how telcos plan to switching to 5G network in the country.
Clearly, India has much ground to cover in bringing 5G experience for over 600 million Internet users.
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