According to a report by TechARC, one-fourth of India’s population now has access to 5G services, which is now available across 189 cities. The report further notes that the state of Gujarat has highest 5G coverage with services available in 34 cities, followed by Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh where 5G services are available in 19 and 16 cities, respectively.
Meanwhile, Delhi and Chandigarh are the only states where the entire population has access to 5G, while Meghalaya has the lowest coverage with only 5 per cent of the population having access the network. TechARC’s report further claims that 41 per cent of smartphone users in India can become 5G users if they decide to upgrade to 5G services.
Among operators, Reliance Jio has rolled out its 5G standalone (SA) network in 184 cities, while Bharti Airtel has covered 52 cities on its non-standalone (NSA) 5G networks. In the NSA version of 5G, the radio access network (RAN) is upgraded to 5G with the core network remaining on 4G, while in SA 5G both RAN and core are upgraded, resulting in higher throughput and lower latency.
