Though the Indian Telecom industry has started discussing 5G, we believe it is still couple of years away. 5G standards are still evolving globally, with the first few commercial launches. Looking at the scale of investment, why can’t we expect more participants from different business verticals than plain vanilla telcos ? The path to 5G will be gradual, based on the development of an affordable ecosystem as well as visibility of the revenue stream.
What are the Key Factors for a 5G Network rollout ?
- Wireless Spectrum For any Wireless service, Spectrum is the most important raw material. Globally, three spectrum bands are being contemplated for a 5G roll-out. Sub 3GHz band can provide a basic layer for 5G coverage. However, most of the spectrum in these bands is already being used for 2G/3G/4G, thus it might not have sufficient availability at this stage. Also the C-Band (3GHz-6GHz) is the popular and is being used in some parts globally. The spectrum in possession by operators is technology agnostic for deployment and thus can be used for 5G, but currently they are still struggling to offer seamless 4G 🙂
- Fiber Backhaul Until the dawn of 4G, Indian Telcos were largely dependent on Wireless Backhaul. In the context of 5G, Fibre backhaul is critical to deploy in order to have low latency, low interference and high network capacity, which can transfer data back and forth to the core network. However, with significant investment to date on spectrum and base stations, Indian telecom operators neglected investment in OFC backhaul where just ~50% of the incumbent operator sites are currently fiberized. Telecom operators as well as infrastructure providers indicated site fiberization will be a key focus area incrementally.
- Upgrade Network Higher spectrum bands demand densification of networks via macro sites / small cells. Industry experts indicate site requirement could rise from <0.5mn currently to a few million over the next few years in India. In addition, with dense networks and 5G, virtualizing of control functions to centralized management through cloud RAN becomes important. Airtel and Jio have indicated they will deploy significant MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) and are working towards Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software-defined Networking (SDN), thus getting the network 5G ready
Industry experts indicate 5G chip sets could be available in scale only by 2022 with disruption of COVID-19. The initial consumer 5G device ecosystem has evolved in High end SmartPhones. However, commercial mass availability of chipsets is only expected by 2022 but services in India are expected to be rolled out only in 2023 though trials of 5G are ongoing by Reliance Jio as they have abundant spectrum as well as Small Cell Network deployed with Jio FTTH service.