In a letter to the secretary of Department of Telecommunications (DoT), T.V. Ramachandran, president, Broadband India Forum (BIF) said that the private 5G captive networks will lead to increased productivity for the enterprises and drive better revenues for the telecom service providers.
Ramachandran further said that the captive usage in the current situation would only contribute a minor share in processes/applications like robotics, automation, etc., due to challenges in delivering the required SLAs through public networks. Therefore, the speculated loss in revenues for telcos via enterprise services is a misplaced one. Telcos will still be deriving a major chunk of revenue from external network services, comprising voice and data communications.
In contrast, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), has strongly opposed Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI’s) recommendations on allowing enterprises to set up private networks saying this will kill the 5G business case for them.
Meanwhile, telcos are of the opinion that that such recommendations by TRAI on 5G pricing, if accepted by the government, could potentially evade telcos of their future 5G enterprise revenues, estimated at around 40 per cent of the total for 5G. Also, revenue loss to such an extent won’t justify capital expenditure in setting up 5G networks, they have argued.
