When will 5G come to India? And what should I expect?

COAI director general Lt. Gen. Dr. S.P. Kochhar and Deloitte India telecom sector leader Peeyush Vaish join Gadgets 360 reviews editor Jamshed Avari and host Akhil Arora to offer their expert insight.

Expect an initial rollout by August 2022, Kochhar says, though it won’t be at the same time for everyone. After all, India needs 8 lakh new towers for 5G, in addition to 1.5 lakh we have today. Moreover, the approach must be different for rural vs urban areas.

Along the way, we delve into how 5G is a lot more than an upgrade to 4G. It allows for dozens of B2B applications (revenue for operators), and new government rules afford more freedom with B2C applications.

5G is set to change cars, gaming, weapon systems, telemedicine, and the Indian Railways. Fire up the episode to discover why. What you pay hence will depend on what you want out of 5G.

Beyond the obvious B2B and B2C, there are a lot of acronyms in this episode. Here’s a quick guide to the most used ones:

• COAI = Cellular Operators Association of India
• DoT = Department of Telecommunications
• TRAI = Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
• mmWave = millimeter wave spectrum (30 GHz to 300 GHz, between microwave and infrared waves)
• eNB = eNodeB, type of radio base station
• ARPU = average revenue per user
• OTT = over-the-top (streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+ Hotstar)
• TSP = telecommunications service provider (such as Jio and Airtel)

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Chapters

• Intro (00:00)
• Rollout and hype (01:06)
• What to expect (09:58)
• Different models (16:46)
• Tariff = apps (21:08)
• 5G use-cases (27:42)
• And beyond (34:03)
• Conspiracies (39:32)
• Outro (45:10)

Cover credit: Z z. Photo credits: Ben Vaughn, Frederik Lipfert, Jakub Pabis, Lipfert, Ryland Dean, Vishnu Vardhan, Robert Gale