The fourth generation (4G) of wireless technology is now well settled in India; the new entrants and incumbent operators still continue with their big claims of data speed. Ask any user and you will find the hollowness of such claims. The customer is made to pay for 4G but rarely gets the desired speed for which she had paid. There are several reasons for lower speeds; but the main one is lack of telecom infrastructure for the 4G network. Now, 5G is on the anvil. It is expected to be commercially available, worldwide, by 2020. During the 2018 Winter Olympics, South Korea demonstrated 5G to visitors. It operates in three modes: one, millimetre wave bands (26,28, 38 and 60GHz) and offer speeds as high as 20 gigabits: second, massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) (64-256 antennas) that offer performance up to 10 times more than the current LTE (long-term evolution) (4G) networks; while the last low-band 5G (600KHz-6GHz) also promises similar speeds.
There is a race among countries to roll out of 5G at the earliest, with US and China taking the lead. The main hurdle is spectrum. {subscription_div} The Indian government has also started work for making spectrum available for 5G networks. Speaking at the Mobile World Congress, Aruna Sundararajan, secretary department of telecom (DoT), announced that DoT has started harmonising spectrum in 3,500Mhz and 26Ghz band along with E and V band and below 700MHz band. Currently, operators in India are using spectrum below 2,600MHz for 4G networks. However, unless the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) submits its recommendation, the government cannot decide on auctions for 5G spectrum.
Upgrading infrastructure, or setting up new one, in telecom sector is a costly affair. Remember, incumbent telecom operators in India are still bleeding from the huge costs incurred on 3G. Add to this the spectrum and infrastructure cost for 4G and then upcoming 5G. But India is not the only country facing this issue. In fact, Andrus Ansip, European Union (EU)’s commissioner responsible for digital single market, estimates a shortfall of 155 billion Euros in the cost of 5G rollout at 500 billion Euros or $615 billion. For Indian operators, the shortfall would be quite high and some players may even shut down or sell off the business if survival is difficult.
According to the standard defined by International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a 4G network should be capable of a download speed of 100 megabits per second (Mbps) for LTE and 150Mbps, for LTE-advanced and upload speed of up to 50Mbps. But these are just standards and not the actual data speed that a subscriber is able to utilise.
Another reason is that most operators try to maximise usage of old infrastructure (2G and 3G networks). Often, we, the subscribers, wonder why we are getting lower speeds and 2G (denoted by ‘E’) and 3G (H+) network, despite paying for 4G. This loot is also supported by handset makers, who, instead of giving a choice to select pure 4G network, use ‘4G/LTE preferred’ option. Some even club 3G and 4G together in a single option, leaving the customer with no choice at all.
A few months ago, while explaining why Reliance Jio was different from other incumbent operators, I wrote that this operator uses only 4G and, hence, there is no question of shifting the subscriber to lower networks.
However, subscribers are now facing newer issues with Jio, like lower speeds and 100% utilisation of daily quota for data by afternoon, without even using any data-heavy app. This is happening mostly with pre-paid subscribers of Jio.
In short, looking at the history of how badly Indian telecom operators treat and cheat subscribers, I think, nothing much will change in the 5G era as well. At the most, by paying for 5G, the subscribers may get real 3G data speed and network everywhere.
