The tender for 5G spectrum auction is likely to be published in early 2022, according to KP Pariselvan, Deputy Director General, National Informatics Centre. He was addressing delegates at W.Media’s first physical event after the pandemic ‘Mumbai Cloud & Datacenter Convention & Awards 2021’.
As India is progressing to become a $1-trillion digital economy by 2025, which will require transformation of India’s digital infrastructure on a massive scale. While India has taken big strides over the years in terms of digital enablement, what could really help in powering digital India is 5G. Pariselvan spoke about the initiatives that the government is taking and the ways in which 5G will benefit different sectors and people.
“The electromagnetic spectrum works in the same way as the light spectrum. 1G was introduced in the year 1980 which was only analogue voice. Subsequently in the year 1990, 2G came in with digital voice and 3G came in the year 2000 with voice and data enabled with a latency of 100 milliseconds which led to the beginning of emails and other services. 4G came in the year 2010 which provided faster voice data and less latency was achieved which is still being used by people and has made it easier for people to interact by exchanging audio and videos.
Now we are coming to 5G which came in the year 2019. It is yet to start in India. It has got high bandwidth and a latency which is close to one millisecond which will do wonders in the world of technology. Theoretically 5G can achieve a maximum of 10gbps, 4G is of 40mbps, 3G is of 8mbps and 2G is 64kbps,” said Shri KP Pariselvan, Deputy Director General, National Informatics Centre
He further added that 5G is the new generation of wireless networks. It is going to be completely different from what we are using now. Some of the characteristic of 5G include:
High Speed
Greater capacity
Low latency
Network slicing
Multi input and Multi output (MIMO)
5G Technology categories
“3GPP which is the Third Generation Partnership Project is an umbrella under seven telecommunication standards and development organisations which develops protocols for mobile telecommunications. There are three main technological categories that are proposed for 5G. The first one is EMBB which is Enhanced Mobile Broadband, this category supports ultra high speed connection both indoor and outdoor. The category officer AR,VR, mobile office, broadband at home, entertainment, cloud gaming and other features,” added Pariselvan.
The second technology is MMTC which is Massive Machine Type Communication. This supports a large number of connected devices, usually called Internet of Things or IoT. This category offers applications like smart cities, smart power grids, smart agriculture,manufacturing industry, supply chain and logistics.
The third one is URLLC which is Ultra Reliable and Low Latency Communications. This category has stringent requirements such as the latency of less than two milliseconds and low packet loss rates. This application opens a wide opportunity for wireless networks such as internet and emergency response, robotics, intelligent transportation and e-health, public safety and others.
MIMO
This technology is being used in 5G MIMO is a technology in wireless communication techniques for sending and receiving multiple data signals simultaneously over the same radio channel. Massive MIMOs use a large number of transmit and receive antennas to increase the transmission and improve efficiency.
Network Slicing
“This is another technology which is being used and will prove to be a game changer in the world of technology. Slicing is a technique in which the physical network resources are sliced into logical network function. The bandwidth is broken into virtual networks which can be allocated and used in an insulated manner. Each network slice consists of network resources dedicated to serving a specific customer service and the network slices are isolated and insulated from one another, one poorly performing service will not disrupt the other. This will prove to be an opportunity for the service provider to generate more revenue, said Pariselvan.
He further explained that the sliced based pricing will be beneficial for the customer as well as the service provider. There are various sectors focused on this. 90 per cent of the addressable market is made up of six industries which are focused to grow to 46 per cent by 2030. These industries include energy and utilities, government, transport, media health and manufacturing.
Edge computing is also going to play a major role after 5G. Moving services to edge computing will lead to better services and response time. IoT will also play a major role in edge computing. 5G will be the key enabler of transporting huge amounts of data that has been generated by devices and will be transferred to cloud where it can be processed and analysed.
5G Use Cases
5G will offer more opportunities in the IT infrastructure. In the area of manufacturing, 5G will enable the use of robotics for manufacturing. 5G is also capable of enabling better logistics to track goods from raw materials to product delivery and improve the sharing of expensive designs and manage the manufacturing sources across the country.
In the area of agriculture 5G cna enable improvement in the entire value chain from precious farming, smart irrigation and improved soil and crop monitoring along with livestock management. 5G will contribute in the energy sector with smart grids, smart metering and supporting an alternate growth of energy.
In healthcare 5G will be more effective in telemedicine, remote surgery and other areas.
The 5G users are increasing in which South Korea tops the list. The forecast of 5G subscription worldwide from 2020 to 2026 explains that there will be a constant increase in the number of subscriptions.
Government Initiatives
Pariselvan further explained that the government of India has taken digital transformation and innovation as a core agenda. Governments around the world are setting up national digital strategy coordinated at the highest level of administration, they are also paying more attention to the emerging technologies like AI, Blockchain, AR, VR and 5G. All of these have a critical role to play in digital transformation and innovation.
The government of India had constituted a high level forum in September 2017 to articulate the vision of 5G in India and submitted a report in August 2018. The Government has also launched a programme titled ‘Build and end-to-end 5G test bed’ in order to advance research and innovation in 5G. This programme began in March 2018. Airtel has already conducted a trial with Ericsson in Gurugram and according to reports they were able to achieve a speed of 3gbps. Jio is also setting up a trial site in Navi Mumbai in collaboration with Qualcomm ventures.
Regulations
The 5G regulations and recommendations are given by the task force appointed by the government of India in the following areas: permitting process, financial support, spectrum allocations, smart infrastructure, net neutrality, cybersecurity audit and infrastructure, privacy and data protection, security of physical infrastructure and human safety.
“5G is expected to create a cumulative economic impact of 1 trillion dollars in India by 2035 according to a report by the government appointed panel. According to the PWC report, the economic impact of 5G in India by 2030 is $42 billion. Out of this manufacturing will be 1 billion, healthcare will be 12 billion, smart cities will be 21 billion, consumer and media will be 5 billion and the financial service will be 3 billion.
In terms of percentage, the manufacturing sector will gain more from 5G which is 25 to 20 per cent and the retail business will gain by 12 per cent and ICT by 11 per cent. 5G will also provide various social benefits to people which include improved benefits of healthcare services, increased public security and response time, safer driving conditions and reduced pollution,” Pariselvan concluded.
