Telecom players bat for sustainable investments ahead of the 5G auctions

India, being one of the fastest growing digital economies is all set to roll out 5G services. As per GSMA, India is set to account for 25% of the total 5G subscribers across the world by 2025.With more than 750 million mobile subscribers and a goal of being a USD 5 trillion economy - 5G will not only be an enabler of growth to the telecom sector in the country but also would propel other sectors to move forward. The objective is to understand on how India gets ready to adopt future ready to adopt ready telecom networks.

Anku Jain, Managing Director, MediaTek India, said, “With the world quickly adopting 5G technology India can’t afford to miss the bus as it will pave the way for India to become a truly digital country. 5G will also give a big push to Smart Cities project and 5G will bring the era of inter-connected smart devices at a large scale which would lead to the transformation of machine to machine and IoT technologies for public services. 5G technology is expected to contribute $2.2 trillion to the global economy in the coming 15 years comprising of various sectors.”

Commenting on the 5G readiness, Vikas Agarwal, General Manager, OnePlus India, said “We’ve been testing 5G since 2016. In fact, we were the first to send a tweet on a 5G network and already have a commercially available 5G device in Europe. We are testing the 5G capabilities in India and are prepared for when India makes the leap into 5G. We are excited about the possibilities that 5G will bring, from cloud gaming to seamless video conferencing, the benefits of 5G are vast.”

Nikhil Shah, Broadband Forum Ambassador, hosted the inaugural panel discussion around 5G readiness in India and steered the participants to key issues in the industry. Spaking at the sidelines of the event, Nikhil said, “We are pleased to take part in the 5G India Leadership Summit which is an important event as India moves to make 5G a reality. Standards have an important role to play in this evolution and during the conference we highlighted how Broadband Forum is accelerating network transformation and cloud evolution through development of an open framework and resources for cloud-based broadband, called Open Broadband. This is a series of initiatives that combine the best of open source with interoperability, standards, and a global network of affiliated labs to support operators wanting to make meaningful change to their networks, while leveraging existing investments and limiting disruption to their customer base.”

Manoj Misra, Senior Public Policy Director, GSMA presented his view on the 5G opportunity in the country. He said, “The GSMA’s vision of ‘Intelligent Connectivity’ highlights how the combination of 5G, artificial intelligence, smart platforms and the Internet of Things can deliver benefits for consumers, enterprises, and society at large. The GSMA forecasts, India will contribute a quarter (24%) of the world’s new mobile subscribers over the period to 2025. With rapid migration to 4G-capable devices and smartphones, by 2025, India will emerge as the world’s 2nd largest smartphone market, with an installed base of almost 1 billion devices. The 4G connections will exceed 75% by 2025, and 5G connections base forecast to reach 88 million by 2025. To achieve the potential of the 5G era, three critical elements are required: substantial investment in digital infrastructure, which should largely come from private sources; a digital environment that inspires trust; and a modernised policy and regulatory framework that enables this.”