That’s a big question.
To understand this let’s look at the key stakeholders – people whose lives are connected to this change as enablers, consumers and creators.
These stakeholders are, the government, the telecom companies, the industry and consumers like us.
Let’s look at the readiness of these stakeholders and through it see if India is ready for 5G?
Is The Government Ready?
The government plays an important role here, with policy formulation, spectrum allocation, and ensuring support for telecom companies.
The current government has collaborated with research institutions to build 5G test beds. They have also invited leading telecom players to run pilot projects and showcase use cases.
The government has indicated that they will allocate spectrum by the end of 2019. This will allow telecom companies to get ready and offer 5G services by 2020.
Are Telecom Companies Ready?
In 2017, there was a collective pushback from the industry related to spectrum sale by the government because the industry was reeling with the pressure created by Reliance Jio, a new entrant then.
Now the situation has changed. Tata, Rcom, Uninor and Aircel are down and out. Vodafone and Idea have become Vodafone Idea. Airtel is hard at work to save its turf. And, Reliance Jio is fast emerging as a contender for a top spot.
Out of three parties standing, Jio seems to be in the best place to roll out 5G once the spectrum is allotted.
In September 2018, a company official had told ET,
“Jio has a 5G-ready LTE network.. ready to launch within five-six months once spectrum is allocated.”
Airtel is also working on 5G readiness through its Project Leap for which it has partnered with Ciena, a US-based leader in telecom networking equipment.
Vodafone is busy with integration post-merger that will go on till June 2020 and not focusing on 5G.
But the truth is that 5G is not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’. So, when the times comes Vodafone Idea will have to play to stay in the game.
Is The Industry Ready?
Industry is not thinking about 5G all the time except for those that stand to benefit from it. Like the players in VR, HD gaming, remote medical tech, data and computing. They are definitely excited.
But once 5G is launched everyone will benefit across industries. Imagine if Byju Raveendran can create BYJU’s, a unicorn in the era of 3G and 4G what will startup founders do with 5G.
Are We Ready?
Yes, we are.
Who wants to wait for their videos to download or Facetime over a poor connection.
5G can affect our well being and there will be concerns about data security and info overload. But like we mostly use a knife to cut vegetables and not to harm ourselves – with 5G also we’ll have to apply our minds to avoid the ill effects and use what is good.
I am waiting to experience, enjoy and to tackle the challenges that come with it.