Much like the global practice, 5G technology has been standardised to work on all bands in India which is on the verge of launching 5G services on allocation of spectrum.

For the country’s operators, 5G services will bring in the much-needed revenue, while mobile broadband would be an important application.

“The technology is available as per 3GPP standards to roll out 5G across low, medium, and high bands, and the first operator will roll out on the mid-band (2.4 GHz-2.8 GHz) with the ecosystem being ready. However, operators would also be looking at the high band (28 GHz) and the low band for capacity expansion,” Thiaw Seng Ng, Head of Network Evolution, Ericsson South East Asia, Oceania and India, said.

For bleeding telecom companies, 5G would help improve their average revenue per user (ARPU), a gauge of financial strength of a service provider.

“In India, mobile broadband would be an important application for 5G, which would also bring down the cost of data per GB,” Ludvig Landgren, Head of Network Applications and Cloud Infrastructure, Ericsson South East Asia, Oceania and India, said. “As telecom networks evolve to 5G, operators are looking to simplify operations and reduce time to market for new functionalities,” he added.

Data traffic

According to a study by Ericsson, consumers are keenly waiting for 5G, and one in three smartphone users in India will change either immediately or within six months to a service provider that switches on 5G.

This underlines the need and want for faster, more capable telecom networks that can address the rapidly growing data traffic in India.

Separately, Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL), country’s largest telecom operator by subscribers, has selected Ericsson to deploy its Cloud Packet Core that will enhance its network. As part of this deal, VIL will benefit from Ericsson’s network applications and functions such as the virtual Evolved Packet Gateway (vEPG), Service Aware Policy Controller (vSAPC) and Virtualisation Infrastructure (NFVi) solution enabling fast introduction of new services and providing full service continuity.

“Data consumption in India is growing rapidly and users are looking for new, richer experiences every day. At VIL, we endeavor to stay ahead of the curve by investing in technologies and solutions to address the evolving demands of millions of our customers in India,” Vishant Vora, Chief Technology Officer at VIL, said.