The government of India will conduct a spectrum auction this year, which will facilitate the roll-out of 5G mobile services by private telecom operators during the financial year 2022-23, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Tuesday. A new design-led manufacturing scheme—under PLI—is also in the works to facilitate the building of a strong ecosystem for the next-generation connectivity standard.
“Spectrum auctions will be conducted in 2022 to facilitate the roll-out of 5G mobile services within 2022-23 by private telecom providers,” Sitharaman said while presenting the Budget 2022 in the Parliament. “A scheme for design-led manufacturing will be launched to build a strong ecosystem for 5G as part of the production-linked incentive scheme,” the FM added.
The telecommunications sector in general, and 5G, in particular, is poised to enable growth and bolster employment opportunities. 5G will bring hundreds of Megabits—even Gigabits—at low latency, speeds that can potentially change the way most—if not all—industries work, today. Not to mention, it will bring the country up-to-speed with the West. The tech industry concurs.
5G—to be transformational force for India
“With 5G technology implementation within 2022-23 by private telecom providers, we foresee propelling growth and a huge opportunity presented for the demand of 5G enabled devices,” Sanmeet Singh Kochhar, Vice President (India & MENA), HMD Global told Financial Express Online, adding “5G will unleash new economic opportunities and societal benefits giving it the potential for being a transformational force for Indian society.”
India’s number one smartphone brand, Xiaomi, said 5G and the slew of “interconnected” devices the technology will enable, will make the country “future-ready” and boost further innovation.
“We are excited about the government’s commitment to roll out 5G by 2023, which will head into a new year of interconnected devices, making India future ready,” a Xiaomi spokesperson said in a prepared statement, adding “the scheme for design-led manufacturing to build a strong ecosystem for 5G, will further boost local innovation in the domain.”
Homegrown brand Lava called the move “encouraging.”
“The budget is highly encouraging for 5G launch in India. Most importantly, there is a scheme in which the design ecosystem of 5G will be given encouragement by bringing it under the PLI scheme of the government. It will encourage many companies like Lava which have an R&D base in India,” Tejinder Singh, Product Head, Lava international Ltd said.
Deployment of 5G will also come as a major shot in the arm for refurbished products.
“Opening 5G spectrum sales in this FY would result in a slew of new mobile and IOT devices being launched. This would result in a new surge of demand for 5G-ready products from early adopters,” Dipanjan Purkayastha, CEO & Co-founder, HyperXchange said, adding “this, in turn, would scale demand for refurbished products in this space, as consumers move up the value chain.”
5G—key to all-inclusive development
The impact of 5G roll-out will not be limited to one or two “key” industries. It will be key to all-inclusive development.
Monika Gupta, Chair- Digital Communications Working Group, IET Future Tech Panel and Vice President, Capgemini, Global 5G Engineering Lead said “5G is a key accelerator to digitisation and a key technology to spur all the four pillars of development— inclusive development, productivity enhancement, energy transition and climate action.”
“As India defines a blueprint of economy for India at 75 to India at 100, it is essential to adopt latest technology and use that as an enabler to achieve these targets and all-inclusive development,” she added.
Mobile and digital payments will become even more appealing to the masses. Fraud prevention will become easier.
“This development is incredible for the banking sector. The spectrum will provide faster and simpler payment options, which will make mobile and digital payments even more appealing to the masses and merchants alike, further boosting usage. This is key to economic growth,” Vishwadeep Bajaj, CEO, ValueFirst said, adding “processing data, verifying the nature of transactions, confirming transaction amounts and funds availability, consulting multiple data instances in real-time, coupled with customer geolocation and merchant ID, will reduce fraud detection errors and false positives, thereby protecting consumers and the bank’s bottom line.”
The IT sector will invite lucrative offers in terms of “innovation, manufacturing and employment opportunities,” Vidhu Nautiyal, Chief Revenue Officer, CloudConnect said.
For players like StepSetGo, 5G will be a “game changer.”
“It will provide us the opportunity to mitigate any tech related inadequacies caused due to data speed and help us augment our product offerings by aiding comprehensive R&D in smaller pockets of the country,” Shivjeet Ghatge, CEO, StepSetGo said, adding “it will help us change the face of fitness in the country and will allow us to make fitness more inclusive and infrastructure-agnostic.”
The possibilities, it seems, are endless. 5G can’t come sooner. Umakant Soni, CEO & Cofounder, ARTPARK (AI & Robotics Technology Park) said the government can look at models of spectrum auction to streamline and fasten the whole process—to help us with “Connecting the Unconnected.”
“In rural areas, the government should create schemes for higher utilisation of such spectrum rather than looking to maximise auction prices. Public 5G built and operated in a decentralised manner will also help us create more jobs in rural areas.”
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