India aims for 5G Network by 2020
5G communication technology is much awaited in India.
Recently, China has launched its 5G network on 31st October, 2019 in 50 cities.
It’s three state run companies: China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom
have put their muscle behind it. Till now 5G network is available only in US,
UK and South Korea. India aims to commercially
deploy 5G network by 2020 which is expected to impact the economy by $ 1
trillion by 2035. In July 2018, Ericsson
installed the first public access 5 G test bed at IIT Delhi to develop
broadband and low latency applications and provided industry and institutions
with access to specific usage scenarios and applications to work on India.
India, a global
mobile industry giant, with approximately 750 million unique subscribers by the
end of 2018 – a number that will rise exponentially in the coming years to
nearly 920 million by 2025. Over this time, India alone will generate nearly a
quarter of the world's new mobile subscribers and will be second to China in
absolute terms. Huawei, a Chinese company accused of spying by United States,
was permitted by India to conduct 5G testing in early 2019.
India Moves towards 5G Networks
- In February 2019, Telecom RegulatoryAuthority of India (TRAI) released ‘A White Paper on Enabling 5G in India’, the purpose was to know the challenges in the installation of 5G Networks all across India and involve all the stakeholders for finding workable solutions.
- In August 2018, 5G High Level Forum released the report titled ’ Making India 5G Ready’, this forum was under the aegis of Department of Telecommunications. This forum had members from the government, industry and academia. This forum was set up in 2017.
- A three year program called ' Building an End-to End 5 G Test Bed ' has been launched by the government in March 2018, to advance innovation and research in 5G. It has budget authorization of Rs. 2.240 million. Under this program there will be collaboration between the best of Indian minds and small technology companies. The participating institutes are: Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) Madras, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur, Centre of Excellence in Wireless Technology (CEWIT), Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering & Research (SAMEER) and Indian Institute of Science(IISc) Bangalore. The major aim is to build proof-of-concept 5G prototypes that are majorly in accordance with the 3GPP standards.
- Department of Telecommunications in India issued, “National Digital Communications Policy” in 2018. The three main components of the Policy are:
- Connect India
- Propel India
- Secure India
 |
| Components of National Digital Communication Policy - 2018 (India) by Rajat Jhingan |
National Digital Communication Policy-2018 (NDCP-2018), released on 26th September 2018, envisions supporting
India’s transition to a digitally empowered economy and society by fulfilling
the information and communications needs of citizens and enterprises by
establishment of a ubiquitous, resilient and affordable Digital Communications
Infrastructure and Services. With respect to the rollout of 5G services,
NDCP-2018 envisages the following-
“2.2
…(d) Enabling Hi-speed internet, Internet of Things and M2M by rollout of 5G
technologies:
i. Implementing an action plan for rollout
of 5G applications and services
ii.
Enhancing the backhaul capacity to support the development of nextgeneration
networks like 5G
iii.
Ensuring availability of spectrum for 5G in 6 GHz bands
iv.
Reviewing industry practices with respect to traffic prioritization to provide
5Genabled applications and services
v. Developing framework for accelerated
deployment of M2M services while safeguarding security and interception for M2M
devices
vi. Defining policy for EMF radiation for
M2M devices, with accompanying institutional framework to coordinate
government-funded and India specific research in this regard”
Timely 5 G rollout in India is crucial to achieving the NDCP-2018 goals.
Realme aims to Launch India’s First 5G Smartphone
When it comes to smartphones for 5G networks, Realme has
announced its first flagship phone Realme X2 Pro, the affordable 5G phone in
India. It is expected to be launched in 2020 and Realme wants to be the first
brand to come up with a 5G phone in India. This announcement has already made Realme
the first brand to already talk about 5G devices officially, for other though
there are still rumors and speculations.Mobile World Congress 2020 which will
be held in February 2020, could see the launch of India's first 5G phone which
is expected to come with a Qualcomm processor. While Xiaomi is aiming to launch
its Redmi K30 with dual 5G in China by December 2020, other smartphone companies
are also working on launching their 5G phones next year.
India, China, Russia and Japan Against the Use of 26Ghz Band for 5G
The World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) 2019 was being held at Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt from
28 Oct, 2019 – Fri, 22 Nov, 2019. At this conference India aligns with Russia,
China and Japan to oppose the usage of 26Ghz band for 5G networks. China and
Russia has been advocating against the use of 26Ghz band because they had been
using this band for their military communications. While India use the same
band for satellite services which is being provided by Indian Space ResearchOrganisation (ISRO). Department of Telecom (India) has accepted ISRO's demad
for using 26 Ghz band for satellite services. While in the same band the 5G ecosystem
has already been developed. India has submitted it's proposal to ITU
(International Telecommunication Union), which which sets benchmark for
wireless service. India has yet to decide as to which alternative band to be
used instead of 26Ghz, while China, Russia and Japan has supported 3000 Mhz
band as alternative solution. China aims to provide 5G services in 3.3-7.125
Ghz range. Low frequency bands means higher coverage and reduced cost of
transmission network.
5G Riding Millimeter Waves
The band of spectrum between 30 GHz and 300 GHz is called
“Millimeter wave spectrum”. It is sandwiched between microwave and infrared
waves spectrum and it has a potential for high-speed wireless communications. Millimeter wave,
is also called, Extremely High Frequency (EHF) or Very High Frequency
(VHF). This naming is done by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
These electromagnetic waves were first probed Jagadish Chandra Bose,
an Indian physicist during 1894–1896 during his experiments to reach 60GHz.
High frequency means narrow wave
lengths and short coverage area. These waves are not reflected by Ionosphere
and they propagate only in the line-of-sight, means it’s strengths will be
greatly affected by rain, humidity, gas etc.
Due to higher
resolution, small component sizes (for example, smaller antenna dimensions),large
bandwidth (for higher data transfer rates), low interference (systems with a
high immunity to cramming), and increased security they were in use for
satellite services and various radar systems. It works best for remote sensing
and astronomy.
Benefits of 5G
- Seamless coverage.
- High data rate – Expected to be around 10 Gbps.
- Low latency - less than 1 millisecond latency.
- Highly reliable communications.
- Increased energy efficiency.
- Spectrum and network efficiency.
- Faster & reliable access.
- Use of higher frequency bands between 30-300 GHz for better capacity, bandwidth scalability and much reduced interference.
- It will be a boon for IoT (Internet of Things) connectivity as it will connect large number of embedded devices and sensors. There will be massive internet of things.
- Higher quality video service.
By: Rajat Jhingan
