As India is getting future ready, serious work on identifying and formalizing the standards for 5G rollout are already in process and it is expected to be ready by 2018, said D P De, Senior DDG, Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC), while talking at the 5G India 2017 Conference in New Delhi on Friday (12 May).
TEC is the nodal agency of the Department of Telecommunications under India’s Ministry of Communications, which is responsible for drawing up of standards, generic requirements, interface requirements, service requirements and specifications for telecom products, services, and networks.
India's first 5G Conference was organised by Bharat Exhibitions with support from COAI, 3GPP, TSDSI and saw massive participation from various telecommunication industry verticals including networks, service providers, manufacturers etc.
“5G will be an overarching umbrella of networks rather than a replacement technology and will usher in significant economic, political and environmental benefits,” pointed out Adrian Scrase, Chief Technical Officer, European Telecommunications Standards Institute, and Head of 3GPP Mobile Competence Core, while delivering his introductory address at the Conference.
According to industry representatives and sectoral experts, the key drivers for 5G rollout and adoption is going to be massive anticipated increase in data consumption, fast increasing digitalized life and services, growth of smart cities and the need to have an all-encompassing network architecture which can utilized all available spectrum band rather than replace the existing networks.
“Connected devices, digitized lifestyle where almost every aspect of human life will be consumed digitally calls for a new paradigm shift in telecommunication eco-system,” said Shyam P Mardikar, CTO (Mobile Networks), Bharti Airtel Ltd.
“We have moved from the Voice phase to Video consumption and next phase will be Virtuality which will demand humungous data availability and networks have to evolve to keep pace. This will be a real challenge,” added Mardikar. He also pointed out that networks will have to become flat, ubiquitous and nearer to consumers in the coming days to cater to fast changing digitized lifestyle.
“5G will address the requirements of the coming decade, " said Radhey Shyam Sarda, Director, Wireless Solution Sales, Huawei.
He also said that 5G architecture is targeting different spectrum bands where each will play different roles and within the emerging scheme of things, C-band and Group 30/40 is emerging as the globally harmonized bands.
“Enhanced user experience, dynamic spectrum sharing, pairing of bands will be the mainstay of 5G architecture" added Sarda.
Rajan S Mathews, Director General, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), said, “That consumers side demand, resource deployment and commercial viability will be the main drivers for the operators for 5G rollout."
“It may be easy to rollout 5G in a country like Japan or South Korea but India is a fundamentally different market with diverse needs. There would be huge financial and structural challenges. We have to make India specific case for 5G,” he added.
While, experts acros the board did agree that sooner or later the telecommunication services will migrate to 5G architecture and time has also come to start serious preparation for network up-gradation.
BW Reporters
Unnikrishnan is currently Senior Associate Editor with BW Businessworld at its Mumbai Bureau. During his two decades long journalistic career, he has received several media awards and recognitions. His articles on healthcare, life sciences and intellectual property rights (IPR) have been republished by several international blogs and journals.
