The government is just planning to which companies they are going to give licenses or permission, what percentage of profits they will get on paper and what from behind for party funding etc and how loot people by just increasing speed in the name of 5G instead of reducing the price of the internet or making it's free for educational point of view.

5G is the next generation of mobile broadband that eventually becomes your  4G LTE connection. The 5G spectrum allocation in India is expected to start somewhere by the end of 2019. The 5g technology will be able to support download speeds up to more than 30 times faster than the current 4G LTE network.The 5th generation wireless systems, or 5G in short, is about to take over the telecom market in India.

The government’s stand in this regard is especially encouraging because now, they are determined to deploy 5G across the country by 2020.The first 5g will get rollout in Kolkata and Bangalore this year.Nearly 67 per cent of users, who participated in a survey, have expressed an intention to take up 5G connectivity when it starts rolling out in India, according to Ericsson's Annual Mobility report. It expects around 40 million smartphone subscribers in India to take up 5G in the first year of its rollout in the country.The network equipment provider expects 5G to start rolling out in India by the second half of 2021. Players like Jio, Airtel and Vodafone are all currently testing their 5G networks in the country. Ericsson predicts that 5G or the fifth generation of mobile broadband will represent around 26 per cent of mobile subscriptions in India by the end of 2026, which is estimated at 330 million subscriptions.

The report shows that currently, India has the second-highest average monthly data consumption on a smartphone at nearly 14.6GB by the end of 2020. It expects this number to rise sharply to nearly 40GB per month on average by the end of 2026. The survey also showed that 50 per cent of consumers are using their smartphones for more than four hours per day, with video, social networking and gaming dominating the use cases.

“The key trends are showing the need for 5G in India and the fact that people are very interested and they are waiting for 5g to be deployed in India. Based on the surveys, what we found was that 21 per cent of smartphone users that we surveyed already have a 5G capable device,” Nitin Bansal, MD, India & Head-Networks, South East Asia, Oceania and India at Ericsson said during a press briefing.

He added that they expect 5G to drive further changes in the user behaviour as current 4G users who own a smartphone are spending more time on enhanced video and multi-player gaming. The trend is that the smartphone users in India are using it beyond just data and voice, and therefore with 5G, it expects this kind of consumption to increase given the faster networks.“The other thing that came out quite clearly was interest around Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) and 5G, and this included two categories of users. One is those who are using 4G today for broadband connectivity at home, and two are those using fibre connectivity at home. We saw there was an interest from both these groups of subscribers to evolve to 5G,” Bansal added.Regarding user expectations, seven out of 10 expect higher speeds with 5G, while six out of ten expect pricing innovation in the form of bundling with other digital services. Further, Ericsson’s data showed that consumers in India, among those surveyed, were willing to pay 50 per cent more for 5G plans and bundled plans with digital services.

The existing numbers

According to the report, 4G subscriptions in India are expected to rise from 680 million in 2020 to 830 million in 2026. In 2020, 4G was the dominant technology, accounting for 61 per cent of mobile subscriptions, which Ericsson predicts will continue to rise and account for nearly 66 per cent of subscriptions by 2026. It also expects the older 3G technology to be phased out by then.

Why do telcos need to give notice before launching new services?

As part of the National Frequency Allocation Plan (NFAP), whenever a new company wants to enter into the telecommunications market, or an existing telecom company wants to launch a new technology, a notice period of one year had to be given to the DoT so authorities can make arrangements for the spectrum required.The first NFAP, released in 1986, has since been revised multiple times to suit the growing number of users in the country as well as the demands of telecom companies. The Union government owns all the publicly available assets within the geographical boundaries of the country, which also include airwaves. With the expansion in the number of cellphones, wireline telephone and internet users, the need to provide more space for the signals arises from time to time.The spectrum waves, however, are also used by agencies such as the Indian Space Research Organisation and defence systems for secure communication. Some of the companies also buy some spectrum for establishing secured communication between their various locations. The DoT thus mandates that all such new technologies which are being launched for commercial purposes give a notice period so that adequate arrangements can be made.

How will the reduced period help in a faster 5G rollout?

In the notice inviting applications for the spectrum auctions to be held in March, the DoT amended the clause by cutting down the notice period to six months from one year. A total of 2251.25 MHz of spectrum across seven frequency bands at a reserve price of Rs 3.92 lakh crore has been put up for sale.

The government has put up, for auction in March, frequency bands only for 4G services. This could mean that the telecom companies could start limited commercial testing of 5G services on frequency bands that are being auctioned in March.

For example, on Thursday, Bharti Airtel announced the successful demonstration of its live 5G service over a commercial network in Hyderabad, the first in India, showcasing the readiness of its network for the next level of mobile telephony.

Explained |What is 5G, and how prepared is India to adapt to this tech?

The network has been rolled out on a use case basis on a non-standalone basis on the 1800 MHz frequency band. The rollout on a non-standalone basis means that the network can fall back on 4G if there are some glitches in the 5G network.

Though the company would still need more spectrum and permission from the DoT to start offering 5G services on a commercial basis, it can now start these real-time tests from September 2021 after buying spectrum in March 2021.

Apart from Bharti Airtel, its market rival Reliance Jio Infocomm had also announced a few days ago that it had begun advanced 5G tests on its network and planned to bring 5G in India as soon as the second half of this year.

How will Indian users benefit from the faster rollout of 5G?

5G or fifth generation is the latest upgrade in the long-term evolution (LTE) mobile broadband networks. On par with global players, India had, in 2018, planned to start 5G services as soon as possible, to capitalise on the better network speeds and strength that the technology promised. However, claims on spectrum space by the Defence Ministry and space department on part of the spectrum that was identified for 5G services has led to the delay up until now

With the shortened notice period for service rollout, telcos feel they will be able to commercially launch the new technology as early as the first half of 2022. This would mean that Indian users would be at the forefront of adopting new technology and experiencing its various uses. The introduction of new technology would also mean the development of new industries such as 5G handsets around the periphery.