India has over 500 million smartphone users. As per the latest Ericsson report, more than 100 million users are eagerly awaiting with their 5G-ready smartphones to upgrade to a 5G plan in 2023. However, the challenges are many for the telecom service providers to touch the planned deadlines. Leading technology and public policy expert, Prasanto K. Roy told IANS, “In theory, there are use cases out there which really warrant and demand 5G: enterprise solutions, private networks, IoT, logistics. But it could take a year or more for those applications to really take off.” Service providers will aim to convert existing higher average revenue per user (ARPU) individual customers to 5G. However, this limits the amount they can charge for 5G since there is so much competition already. Roy added, “I don’t see 5G really bumping up ARPU overall in any significant way — at least not in 2023.” The top four metros should be able to experience 5G as early as October as per Airtel, to late October according to Reliance Jio. Airtel is considering taking 5G to eight cities this month itself. However, there is no information from Vodafone-Idea about the 5G rollout plans. Prasanto further added, “However, with tariffs still unclear, I do not know if current 4G customers will all be able to sample a limited trial, or will have to upgrade right away. Although Airtel (and possibly Jio) expects a revenue increase (from its current ARPU of Rs 183), I do not expect most customers to shell out much more for 5G.” According to the study by Ericsson, users are ready to pay a 45% premium for a plan bundled with new experiences. This is certainly a ray of hope for 5G service providers. Vice President of Research at Counterpoint, Neil Shah said to IANS, “Jio is in a driver’s seat with respect to its peers to likely achieve a pan India 5G network rollout over the next 15 months with no 2G, 3G and 4G baggage.” Apart from the consumers, the public sector, as well as enterprises, will benefit from 5G in the next couple of years. Shah noted, “Airtel, on the other hand, also has been building a highly upgradeable network to easily reuse the same towers for both 4G and 5G. Most of its key circles should be able to experience 5G by mid-2024.” According to smartphone manufacturers, 5G will bring together the whole ecosystem of augmented/virtual reality (AR-VR experiences), online gaming, and content creation. CEO realme India, VP, realme and President, realme International Business Group, Madhav Sheth said, “With 5G being officially available now, we are looking forward to exploring the numerous opportunities it provides to us and will be directing our efforts into making this technology even more accessible to users.” Roy explained, “To really leverage 5G bandwidth and latency, towers are to be connected by fibre. Only a third of them are ‘fiberised’ so I would expect 5G service to be reserved for large cities until the fiber gets to twice that number of towers,” he explained. Telcos already struggled with tower density for 4G and thus for 5G that needs much higher tower density, thereby increasing upfront investment they would struggle more. According to Roy, “All this capex investment would also be limited by the telcos’ high debt and stagnant ARPU (revenues), already stretched by spectrum fees and initial 5G investments.”
