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5G services will finally become a reality this year. With commercial launches happening in many countries across the world, India is also on the cusp of adopting the technology.
“5G has been a hot topic for the past many years. However, it will become a reality this year. 5G is a very complicated technology, and this is made possible by contributions from multiple partners in the industry,” said Wang Xiang, Xiaomi’s Senior Vice-President.
Besides helping to frog-leap from the present MBPS to GBPS, the technology will also lead to low latency and increased connectivity. Further, married with other technologies such as the Internet of Things, 5G will help in providing uninterrupted and secured access to the cloud.
“5G is what we call the invention age. It’s going to connect to the internet and connect everything to massive amounts of data. It will also significantly enhance the app experience. 5G is finally here, and we see devices flowing into the hands of the users,” said Cristiano Amon, President, Qualcomm. “Following the advent of 5G, gaming would become mainstream on mobile devices and not just on kiosks. That’s bringing in machine learning to every single application and unleashing the power of cloud,” Amon added.
Commercial rollouts
A number of companies, such as Qualcomm, Xiaomi, LG Electronics, Huawei Consumer Business Group (CBG) and Lenovo among others showcased or launched 5G handsets and equipment at the Mobile World Congress 2019 (MWC) here.
“There has been a commercial launch of 5G in the US on the mmWave, which is expected to be followed up with a rollout on the sub-6 GHz spectrum. Commercial rollouts are also happening on sub-6-GHz across Europe, China, South Korea and Australia, while Japan is expected to join the bandwagon this year or early next year,” Nitin Dhiman, Staff Manager, product marketing at Qualcomm said.
Indian scenario
According to analysts, 5G would make a landfall in India sometime next year, that’s if the spectrum auctions happen this year.
“In my opinion, operators in India can now launch 5G with the present spectrum allocation, but in a limited manner. More than being in the race, Indian operators and the government need to look at how 5G can co-exist with 4G, WiFi and other technologies to reap the best benefits,” Amresh Nandan, Research Vice President (CSP Technology) at Gartner said.
The writer is in Barcelona at the invitation of Qualcomm.
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