Daily Answer Writing
07 May 2021

Q) What do you mean by 5G technologies? Enumerate the challenges that India faces in its implementation. (150 Words)

Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/what-is-5g-trial-why-is-it-important-for-indian-telcos-7305133/

GS 3: Science and Technology

Approach Answer:

Introduction: 5G Technology is a wireless communication technology using radio waves or radio frequency (RF) energy to transmit and receive data. Although it is featured by high data transmission rates and low latency, the final standard for 5G  set up by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

 

Following are the Technical specification for 5G:

              • High data rates: For 4G a theoretical 100  Mbps(Mega bits), 5G tops at 10 Gbps(giga bits).

              • Massive connectivity of 1 million connections /km2 (4G- 100thousand connections/km2).

              • Ultra-low latency of 1 millisecond i.e. a data packet would take 1ms to go across a network. 4G has a latency of 10 ms.

              • Wide spectrum available: 30 Ghz of available spectrum in comparison to 3Ghz of 4G.

                            

India has taken various steps in this regard:

              • Steering Committee, headed by AJ Paulraj, for identifying the 5G deployment roadmap for India recently submitted report titled 'Making India 5G Ready'.

              • Government has launched a program titled ‘Building an End-to-End 5G Test Bed’. The program envisages close collaboration between the universities & small technology companies to build broadly compliant with the third generation partnership projects (3GPP) standards.

              • Ericsson has installed the first public access 5G test bed at IIT Delhi.

             

Challenges in implementation in India:

              • Competition from world leaders: China has 3400 5G Patents, Korea has 2051, US has 1368 patents. Huawei Technologies and ZTE are two companies which are world pioneer in 5G Technologies.

              • Geo Politics: US led blockage on Chinese companies Huawei Technologies and ZTE, putting them into trade blacklist, citing security concerns effectively blocking the company from sourcing hardware, software and services from US suppliers.

              • Poor financial health of Telecom service providers: There is a lack of flow of cash and adequate capital with at least two of the three players, namely Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea.

              • Affordability of the network: Due to high investment cost the network might not be affordable by many in India.

              • Last mile connectivity: The tier II and III cities are still not connected adequately with the National Optical Fibre network. 5G connectivity would be difficult without it.

              • Investment: 5G require higher density of networking. This would require huge investments.

             

Conclusion: India has started 5G trials base on the recommendations of the High level panel on 5G led by Principal scientific adviser, K. Vijay Raghavan, called for exclusion of Chinese players from national trials. India must ensure whatever bilateral configuration emerges from such talks does not restrict the sale of 5G equipment to others. The decisions in this regard must be made coldly from the prism of economic self-interest.

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