Digital blockbuster: Do aur do 5G

India is on course to have one of the fastest rollouts of 5G telecom networks, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi launching services within two months of spectrum being auctioned. This will make up for time the country lost in finalising the auctions. But on the flip side it helps the adoption of the technology because of the ecosystem developed by early adopters. Along the way, spectrum prices have been brought down, although not to the extent the industry would have liked. But it does address the concern of GoI losing in its quest for high upfront spectrum fees tax revenue on account of slow growth in the digital economy.

Modi’s vision of Digital India rests on bringing down costs both in technology development and equipment manufacturing. GoI has an ambitious agenda of services stacked on the latest generation of wireless communications. 5G networks permit a density of interconnected devices that raise the potential for the delivery of a wide array of public services. This apart, digital transformation of agriculture, manufacturing and services is expected to boost economic productivity as the 5G technology stack matures. GoI expects Indian IT companies to play a leading role in this while hardware gains from manufacturing incentives provided as the world seeks supply chain resilience. A new generation of Indian unicorns is expected to emerge with the 5G rollout.

Possibly some of the biggest gains will accrue to enterprise through Industry 4.0. Machine-to-machine communications on 5G networks are expected to overshadow human communications, leading to a paradigm shift in productivity. Spectrum allocation has been tweaked to allow enterprises to set up captive networks, which ought to widen use cases. The telecom industry, on its part, has received a lifeline from GoI in easier revenue-sharing, spectrum payment in instalments and scrapping of peripheral fees. In return, the industry bid vigorously for the spectrum on offer. For a full 5G experience, backhaul bottlenecks now need to be ironed out with the states.