India started the 5G services with a lot of enthusiasm, hope, and expectation. The path toward the launch was not easy, as it required a lot of preparation in terms of the harvesting palatable spectrum, and auctioning them to the operators. And this wouldn’t have been possible without the active support from the DoT and the regulator. It took the GOI 2 to 3 years of extensive preparation, and the result speaks for itself — 62.7 GHz of airwaves was extracted in the 26 GHz band, 7.26 GHz in the 3.3 GHz, 550 MHz in 700 MHz, and 660 MHz in the 600 MHz, all on a Pan India basis, and all new 5G bands. Never in the past, has such an effort been undertaken to clear the airwaves in a coordinated and planned manner. No doubt the GOI deserves full credit, but unfortunately, this won’t be enough, and to fully leverage the capabilities of 5G more needs to be done. I write this note with the sole purpose of enumerating these follow-up actions which are absolutely critical for making 5G more empowering and useful for the masses.
Limited Coverage
The Coverage of 5G services today is limited and patchy. The reason is — the focus of 5G deployment today is mainly in the 3.5 GHz band. The propagation characteristic of radio waves in this band is much poorer compared to those at the lower frequencies. But 5G needs Ubiquitous coverage, both indoors and outdoors. Why? Else the consumers have to rely on the legacy networks for the continuance of their service. This will dilute the usefulness of 5G networks drastically, as the full value of 5G services will only get unlocked when the user is stationary, indoors at home, or in the office, where data is consumed in large quantum. This limitation is clearly evident from the BTS and tower data published by DoT captured in the chart below.
