5G: Dialling Jobs?
The wait is over. 5G is set to become a reality soon. The telecom industry is agog with excitement, as are others, about the far-reaching implications of the spectrum auctions. The various service providers got the spectrum they needed either for rollout of new services or for improving the existing ones. With better availability of spectrum, the quality of services is expected to improve. But things are expected to get dramatically better with 5G rollout. It will not just help address the issue of low fixed broadband penetration in India but also significantly improve consumers' data experience.
Already, there is excitement on the jobs front. Leading job portals have started advertising thousands of openings for skilled manpower that will be urgently required by companies involved with the ecosystem of 5G rollout. Telecom engineers as well as those with experience in wireless data technology and related fields are suddenly in high demand. Between the leading job portals, more than 80,000 jobs have been currently advertised for specific rolls related to the 5G/4G and LTE technology.
Spectrum Auctions
After the successful completion of auctions for 5G spectrum, leading telecom operators have grabbed 71 per cent of the total of 72,098 MHz (mega hertz) of spectrum that was put on the block. The government will receive Rs 1,50,173 crore (around $19 billion from four bidders including existing operators Jio, Airtel, Vodafone Idea, and the Adani Group) in total but in annual instalments. For the current financial year, the annual installment to be paid by all participants is Rs 13,365 crore (around $1.67 million). Of course, the companies have the option of paying a bigger installment.
An interesting aspect of the spectrum auctions is the choice of spectrum band that individual operators went after. For example, Reliance Jio Infocomm obtained 24,740 MHz spectrum in 700, 800, 1800, 3300 MHz and 26 GHz for Rs 88,078 crore. Whereas Bharti Airtel obtained 19,867.8 MHz in 900, 1800, 2100, 3300 MHz and 26 GHz bands for Rs 43,048 crore. Vodafone Idea obtained 6,228 MHz spectrum in 1800, 2100, 2500, 3300 MHz and 26 GHz for Rs 18,799 crore. Whereas Adani Data Networks obtained 400 MHz spectrum in mm wave band (26 GHz). It paid Rs 212 crore. No bids were received for 600 MHz band, which was put for auction for the first time. Reason: The device ecosystem of 600 MHz band is still not developed for mobile telephony. "In a few years this band may become important," the government said.
The 700 MHz band is well developed for the 5G ecosystem, experts said. It has a large cell size and infrastructure requirement is less. This band provides a large range and good coverage. Therefore, in this band Reliance Jio obtained pan India 10 MHz spectrum. The message is clear. Reliance Jio will push 5G services using this band. For bands between 800 to 2500, participants have primarily placed bids for spectrum for augmenting capacity and improving 4G coverage, experts added. Spectrum in these bands were obtained by Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone India.
Mid band i.e. 3300 MHz band is crucial in providing high throughput. All three existing operators have obtained spectrum in this band. Operators are likely to augment existing 4G capacity and provide 5G services in 3300 MHz band, experts added.
In mm wave band, 26 GHz, which has a high throughput but very short range, is expected to be utilised for captive or non-public network. Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) is becoming popular in this band across the world. FWA can be used as an alternative to fibre in high density/ congested urban areas. Therefore, it is clear why all the four participants have obtained spectrum in this band.
In May, earlier this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that 5G, besides speeding up the Internet, would boost job creation and overall economic progress. He said this at the Silver Jubilee event celebration of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. “India’s economy would get a boost of $450 billion with 5G in the next one-and-a-half decade.” And he is absolutely correct.
It must be pointed out here that 5G is already operating across 50 countries (even more) and is set to cover 65 per cent of the world’s population in the next four years.
Skilled Manpower Needed
As per the Telecom Sector Skill Council (TSSC), India would require 22 million skilled manpower by 2025 to work on technologies like 5G, IoT, AI, machine learning, big data, cloud computing, and robotic process automation. "As per TSSC, there was a talent demand supply gap of almost 28 per cent in identified areas in the past year. The advent of 5G technology is expected to further accelerate this gap especially in industrial environment, where new use-case development, managing mission-critical applications will be important," said Charu Paliwal, Research Analyst at Counterpoint Research. So, what is the solution? "Upskilling and reskilling will be the key," she added.
What kind of skills may be required for 5G services, both on the hardware and the software side?
"The overall focus will be on hiring new talent in both hardware and software technologies. It is evident that there is already a surge in demand for jobs like data analysts, data scientists, and AI professionals across the world. In addition to this, given the increased demand for voice and data services, network engineers and field maintenance staff will also continue to stay in demand," said Nitin Bansal, MD, India & Head-Networks, Southeast Asia, Oceania and India, Ericsson.
Will 5G rollout lead to demand for specialised manpower in India? "Yes, it will," said Bansal. "It will call for specialised skill sets and the need to therefore upskill and re-skill the existing workforce will be needed," he said, adding, "Upskilling and reskilling of Indian workforce will call for strong partnership between the government, the academia and the industry. This will serve to future-proof the workforce as well as lead to the creation of a strong ecosystem for 5G.”
He informed that the Ericsson Radio System hardware has been 5G-ready since 2015 enabling operators to upgrade to 5G with a remote software installation and Ericsson’s manufacturing facility in Pune will enable it to supply its advanced, world-class 5G radios to customers in India.
Airtel has already announced that it is sticking with Ericsson and Nokia as its vendors for the 5G deployment. It used Ericsson and Nokia to build its 4G network as well. However, a new partner in Samsung as a third supplier has also been announced by Airtel that has secured 5G spectrum for 20 years in this auction. "The company does not need to spend any material sum on spectrum for many years to come," Airtel said after the auctions.
Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO, Bharti Airtel said, “Airtel is delighted with the results of the 5G auction. This spectrum acquisition at the latest auction has been a part of a deliberate strategy to buy the best spectrum assets at a substantially lower relative cost compared to our competition."
On 03 August, Airtel announced that it has awarded its first 5G contract in the country to Ericsson for deployment to get underway in August 2022. Ericsson is Airtel’s long-standing connectivity partner and pan-India managed services provider, with a partnership spanning more than 25 years and covering every generation of mobile communications.
Big Investments & Impact
As per Paliwal, 5G would need massive investment and it is expected to surpass 4G investments in the coming years. "For instance, Airtel is expected to invest Rs 1.17 lakh crore through Indus Towers, Nxtra and Bharti Hexacom over the next four financial years," Paliwal said. Besides the money invested to buy the required spectrum, there are other areas that need upgrades. These include RAN or radio access network. It is a major component of a wireless telecommunications system that connects individual devices to other parts of a network. Then core and transmission will need upgrades. "We have seen how the leading operators are gearing up for investments in networks by increasing their capex and rolling out tariff hikes but there is still a lot of work to be done," Paliwal added.
Where will these investments be deployed besides buying the spectrum? The key areas of investment besides spectrum would be the fibre infrastructure and adding new mobile towers including small cells. Furthermore, investments would be required in various spheres of the ecosystem – be it manufacturing devices, developing India specific use-cases and enterprise applications, setting up increasing number of edge data centres and, of course, rollout of network infrastructure.
From the consumer perspective the 5G-ready smartphone have been selling for a number of months now. How would the 5G rollout impact the demand uptake for 5G-enabled phones? What would be its impact on 4G handset sales?
Counterpoint Research expects that by the end of 2022, 5G smartphones will account for 38 per cent of the total handset shipments in India. This is expected to increase to 52 per cent by the end of 2023. "Although, 4G handsets will continue to dominate in the near term but intense competition among OEMs, availability of cheaper 5G chipsets and declining prices of devices will enable brands to push more 5G devices into the market," said Paliwal.
Finally, all the gains and benefits related with 5G will help the country speed up its connectivity. Of course, the consumers should get ready to pay for faster, speedier data. After all, the telcos will need to make money in order to pay for the cost of 5G.
