INDIA 5G INFRASTRUCTURE MARKET
INTRODUCTION
5G is the latest networking technology being implemented within the global scale under various telecommunication policies around the world of which India stands to be one of the major implementing nations on ground services. These elements of 5th Generation network are being built and implemented on the existing 4G LTE Network present in the country.
Many elements of current 5G technology build on 4G networks, rather than representing a complete departure—and that means mobile operators can take an evolutionary approach to infrastructure investment. For instance, operators could begin by upgrading the capacity of their existing 4G macro network by reframing a portion of their 2G and 3G spectrum, or by acquiring additional spectrum when available.
When network upgrades are no longer sufficient to support the increased traffic, operators will need to build new macro sites or small cells. That point in time will vary by location, but simulations show that most operators will need to embark on significant new build-out between 2020 and 2025. This is set to increase the cost behind the network establishment and presence.
The 5G Infrastructure development project is a capital improvement project the size of the entire planet, replacing one wireless architecture created this century with another one that aims to lower energy consumption and maintenance costs.
One of the main differences between 5G and the previous generations of cellular networks (3G and LTE/4G) lies in the strong focus on machine-type communication enabling the Internet of Things (IoT). 5G will use spectrum that covers the existing LTE frequency range (600 MHz to 6 GHz).
It is combined with the new millimetre wave bands (24-86 GHz) to encompass key features such as low latency, high throughput, high mobility, and high connection density. The capabilities of 5G thus extend well beyond mobile broadband with ever-increasing data rates.
INDIA 5G INFRASTRUCTURE MARKET DYNAMICS
Within the sector, it was the rapid spread of mobile telephony that persuasively demonstrated the benefits of telecom sector liberalisation. What has been remarkable about mobile is the pace of adoption – there were periods when India added more mobile phones in a month than it did phones in 50 years since Independence.
Voice calls in India are amongst the cheapest in the world . The proximate reason is the explosive growth of mobile telephony, which has benefited from rapid technological progress as well as an increasingly liberal policy environment. Mobile phones are ubiquitous in some Indian cities, where tele density is now comparable to that in certain Western European countries, that is, it exceeds 100.
The evolution to 5G is logical for Telcos While 4G was a clear upgrade in technology from 3G, 5G is more focused on incremental enhancements on existing Long-Term Evolution (LTE) technology thereby allowing operators to evolve their LTE networks. As telcos are deploying these enhancements on LTE; new service dimensions are opening up. This incremental approach makes the transition logical, and telcos are already on the path to 5G.
India currently runs on the 4G LTE, 3G and 2G Network modulation being placed across the country at various regional levels. The major hindrances seen in the network optimisation towards 5G Infrastructure as part of the increased approach to the Indian 5G infrastructure market improvement includes the Higher latency values in 4G prevent it from being used for industrial and mission critical applications.
The 5G infrastructure market has been looking upon the requirement analysis of productivity and better fundamentals to have modulated infrastructure placed as part of decreasing coverage gaps and better data rates / processing abilities.
INDIA 5G INFRASTRUCTURE MARKET SEGMENTATION
Indian 5G Infrastructure market can be segmented into following categories for further analysis.
By Installation Infrastructure Type
- 5G Radio Access Networks
- 5G Core Networks
- Transport Networks
By Application
- Residential Application
- Commercial Application
- Industrial Application
- Military Application
- High-Capacity User Application
By Integration / Structure Type
- Private Partnership Only
- Public Private Partnership
- Program based Public Private Partnership
By Technology Spectrum Band Type
- Low Band Spectrum – Less than 1 GHz
- Mid Band Spectrum – Between 1 to 6 GHz
- High Band Spectrum – 24 GHz to 40 GHz
By Ownership Model Operation Type
- Self-Paying Individuals
- Government Sponsored establishments
- Commercial establishments
By Regional Classification
- Western Region – India
- Eastern Region – India
- Southern Region – India
- Northern Region – India
RECENT MARKET TECHNOLOGICAL TRENDS IN INDIA 5G INFRASTRUCTURE MARKET
5G Infrastructure Market in India has been gearing up in recent days to technologically adopt the increasing telecom usage and telecommunication capacity increase so as to have better efficiency and operational speeds of the network. It is being designed to have specific usage so as to increase the latency and other technological interventions to be integrated within the country.
While there have been technological advancements from second generation through to fourth generation in telecom, none of the previous developments expanded the service dimension beyond the traditional revenue streams in the sector. More so, cause a technology shift in the ways other industry verticals operate. 5G is expected to add to those service dimensions through improved network performance characteristics as well as enabling technologies such as IoT, AI, robotics etc.
The major technological advancements includes the integration of the eMBB technology which involves Improved and uniform high throughput experience, better in building/ indoor access, capability to cater to dense/ crowded areas, improved spectrum utilisation are expected to enable deployment of data intensive use cases like Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR), Cloud, 3-D Video/ 4K screens.
5G networks are expected to not only enable telcos to meet user demand for high-speed data networks, but also support rich content types such as 4K/ 8K videos, AR/ VR allowing telcos to counter the threat of OTT players who have impacted telco revenues negatively in the past decade. Telecom service providers are forging partnerships with players across the value chain to develop content and relevant offerings.
COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE
India has been involved in implementation of various technologies on the ground to be tested within the 5G infrastructures as part of continued improvement requirements within the country which would help mobilize the required infrastructure under upgraded and updated working operations.
The whole ecosystem for 5G is becoming completely open and a few telecom operators around the world are moving towards a fully open Radio Access Network (RAN) ecosystem for 5G deployment instead of depending on a closed ecosystem of few companies and their proprietary products.
STL India has been one of the active competitors in the 5G infrastructure requirements by collaborating with IIT Chennai as part of integrating a strong 5G Software component within India to change the dimensionality of the Indian 5G infrastructure Market.
STL has been working on the wireless ecosystem for the last three years. With some customers and operational labs at a global level as well as India, we will be soon moving to field trials in the first half of 2021 with commercial deployment towards the latter half of 2021. 5G technology is more about software, hardware, RAN, cloud, and integrators. And, like it happened in the computing industry, and the hardware and software is getting separated with software moving to the cold. So telecom service operators can now buy these off the shelf.
The Hyderabad based IT Firm has been involved in integrating a high end technological Open Radio access network technology software which is important in having a high-end collaboration of Ultra density networks and other 5G infrastructure to be mobilised by the various telecom operators within the country. The Organization is also considering aspects of integrating LIDAR which is a drone-based survey capability as part of site identification for new 5G technology base towers.
