Get ready to cruise over 150-200 mbps download speed on 5G highway

Will later stabilise at around 60 mpbs when subscriber number swells to 100 million or more

Come October and Indians wielding 5G mobile phones may be able to get blazing download speeds of over 150-200 mbps supported by the 3.5-GHz band, say telecom gear companies that are building the 5G networks.

The current average 4G download speed is a mere 13.2 mbps, according to Speedtest which monitors speeds in over 140 countries. 

Those who already have 5G phones, but are using 4G services, currently enjoy a 30-35 per cent higher speed than those with non-5G smartphones.   

But the point to note is that data speeds in the initial stages of 5G deployment — when subscribers and usage are very low — are always high as evidenced by global trends. As more subscribers join, the speed stabilises at a lower level.

A senior telecom gear company executive says the company is working on building networks in India that would be able to offer average stable download speeds of at least 50-60 mbps, even when the subscriber base is 100 million and more on the network. 

It will be a couple of years before each player can reach that subscriber number.

“We might be able to provide an average, stable speed of 100 mbps if the configuration is right in terms of more towers, massive MIMO (multiple-input and multiple-output) deployments and an increase in fibre backhaul,” said the executive of another global telecom gear company.

India has always lagged other countries on download speeds. Its average median 4G download speed is still less than half the global average of 30.79 mbps and it is ranked at a low 117 position.

The reason is that telecom companies have been given much less spectrum than their global counterparts, even though they have more subscribers.

This has all changed somewhat with the latest 5G auction; Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio have picked up 100 MHz of 3.5-GHz spectrum and also 800-1,000 MHz in the millimetre bands. This is in sync with global trends. 

Both these bands are key to high 5G speeds but telecom firms are currently using only 3.5-GHz spectrum for mobile services because devices working on the millimetre band are not yet available in India.  

Global data by Ookla, which monitors 5G speeds across the world, shows that average global download speed of 5G in the third quarter (Q3) of 2021 was 166.13 mbps, 13 per cent lower compared to Q3 2020, when speeds of 206.22 mbps were clocked. Clearly, with more subscribers, the speed will come down.

Opensignal, which looked at the top 15 geographies in terms of 5G speeds, says that average speeds have remained above 100 mbps, with South Korea topping the list at 432.7 mbps.

This is much higher than in the US, where experts say that T-Mobile, for example, offers 5G speeds of just 130-140 mbps.      

But is speed really so important for subscribers? When queried by Ookla in a customer survey this year about what would improve the service provided by their operators, 42 per cent of the respondents said it is faster connection speeds.

When asked to specify what mattered to them, the overwhelming majority of consumers (70 per cent) listed being able to stream video content, followed by  gaming (68 per cent).