October 2022 witnessed the milestone launch of 5G services in the country. The launch, indeed, was the highlight of the India Mobile Congress 2022, where telecom operators demonstrated key features of 5G technology such as low latency, high throughput and ubiquitous connectivity.
Now, with the country finally jumping onto the 5G bandwagon, private telecom operators such as Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio have accelerated their efforts to scale up their 5G roll-out. While Airtel has announced the launch of Airtel 5G Plus services in eight cities (Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Siliguri, Nagpur and Varanasi), Reliance Jio has announced the beta trial of its True 5G services in four cities (Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Varanasi).
However, both the operators’ services will be available once companies complete the construction of their networks and 5G roll-outs. So, technically, the services are yet to be available to end-users.
End-users who do not own 5G-ready smartphones would also have to wait for their smartphone makers to push an over-the-air (OTA) update enabling 5G on their devices. Moreover, those users who have 5G-enabled devices also cannot access it as there is no single application or use cases that is available for 5G-enabled handsets. So, the device ecosystem also needs to evolve for customers to reap benefits of the technology.
Therefore, while telcos have the Herculean task of setting up networks and ramping up 5G availability, device manufacturers need to make sure their handsets can support the various use cases. In this sense, the country still has to wait before 5G becomes truly available. It is now up to the key stakeholders to deliver on the 5G promise and help India leverage the untapped potential in this space.
