In News:

• Prime Minister Modi will launch 5G in select cities on October 1.
• After the launch, India will get 5G mobile services — almost five years after the country took its first steps towards the launch of the next generation of mobile telephony.

What’s in Today’s Article:

• 5G – About, comparison, Benefits, India’s journey towards 5G

5G

• 5G is the 5th generation mobile network. It is a new global wireless standard after 1G, 2G, 3G, and 4G networks.
• 5G enables a new kind of network that is designed to connect virtually everyone and everything together including machines, objects, and devices.
• 5G wireless technology is meant to deliver higher multi-Gbps peak data speeds, ultra-low latency, more reliability, massive network capacity, increased availability, and a more uniform user experience to more users.
• Higher performance and improved efficiency empower new user experiences and connects new industries.
• 

Benefits of 5G

• As per the government, the cumulative economic impact of 5G on India is expected to reach $450 billion by 2035.
• For consumers, 5G could have benefits owing to the superior Internet speed and low latency it promises over 4G.
  • At its peak, internet speeds on 5G could touch 10 Gbps, compared to the 100 Mbps peak of 4G.
  • Similarly, latency under 4G is between 10-100 ms (millisecond) whereas on 5G it is expected to be under 1 ms.
    • Latency is the time it takes for a device to send packets of data and get a response. Shorter the latency, quicker the response.

India’s journey towards launching 5G

• High-level forum formed
  • In 2017, the government had set up a high-level forum to evaluate and approve the country’s roadmap for rolling out 5G.
  • The main agenda of this forum was to keep India’s roadmap for 5G aligned with the global standards so as to prevent the lack of homogeneity in global telecom networks.
    • Lack of homogeneity was witnessed in services up till 4G.
• Report of the forum submitted in 2018
• The forum, headed by Stanford University’s Professor AJ Paulraj submitted its report in 2018.
• It suggested focus on areas including spectrum policy, regulatory policy, application and use-case labs for developing locally-tailored solutions.
• Activities related to spectrum allocation and pricing
  • While research and development for 5G applications continued, the government started allocating spectrum to telecom operators to conduct trials.
  • By 2019, the telecom department and the sector regulator TRAI started considerations on spectrum pricing.
  • In August 2022, the government concluded auctioning of 5G spectrum — in what was one of the final steps towards launching the services.
• Rolling out of 5G Services
  • After the auction, three private telecom service providers, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio Infocomm, and Vodafone Idea have been selected to roll out the 5G services.
  • Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel will launch initial 5G services in select cities in the weeks leading up to Diwali.
    • They will cover the country next by either late 2023 or early 2024.
  • Vodafone Idea is still to announce 5G launch timelines.