5G in India: Mobile internet usage to grow by 4GB a month to 11GB in 2022

With the growing data usage among the Indian consumers, the total mobile data traffic is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 40 per cent, from 1 EB of data consumption by the end of 2016 to almost 8 EB of data per month by 2022.

According to the Ericsson Mobility Report, June 2017, data usage levels are expected to increase from the current 4GB per smartphone per month to about 11 GB per smartphone per month in 2022, complemented by the fast-pace expansion of the smartphone industry in India.

In order to satisfy the demand for data traffic, more efficient methods need to be introduced to counter this demand. Therefore, 5G will be an important part in the coming years to support the increase in traffic in regular mobile broadband. Ericsson, with its all-inclusive portfolio, is pursuing this direction globally and India as well.

"5G is a system that includes radio access, cloud, core and management systems: it interworks with LTE and uses network slicing technologies. Ericsson is making 5G innovation a reality, with the strongest global 5G portfolio to enable rapid growth, leading innovation with the best 5G platforms for the real world, and transforming to 5G successfully," said Nitin Bansal, Country Manager, Ericsson India, while addressing a press conference.

Like the transition to 2G and 3G, the move to 5G will add a new element- the industrial Internet. And, like the transition to 4G, it will be much higher performance than the previous generation. 5G will also enable organizations to move into new markets and build new revenue streams with radically new business models and use cases, including IoT applications.

The new capabilities of 5G will span several dimensions, including tremendous flexibility, lower energy needs, greater capacity, bandwidth, security, reliability as well as lower latency and device costs.

5G introduction is generally planned on spectrum bands which are currently not deployed in networks. This implies that higher frequencies will have to be used that inherently provide lesser coverage. While this would provide much higher capacity as large chunks of unused spectrum is available however operators would probably then need to combine these high frequencies with 5G channels on lower bands, that we call '5G anchor bands'.

By combining the higher and lower bands using carrier aggregation functionality in 5G, operators will be able to offer the 5G coverage and capacity to provide a better user experience to their customers.

Collaborations form an important part of 5G deployments, particularly with players from the telecom sector and academia. To this regards, Ericsson has teamed up with IIT Delhi for seamless deployment, apart from a range of other global partnerships.

"Partnerships will be a key for the success of 5G. Ericsson has launched world's first 5G platform and has signed 5G collaboration agreements with 30+ operators, 20 industry partners and 45 universities and institutes around the world including IIT Delhi. We are ahead of the game with our 5G platform that addresses the needs of the first movers in 5G with solutions, enabling today's networks to evolve smoothly to the next generation of networks," said Christian Hedelin, Head of Strategy-Business Area Networks at Ericsson.

Initial 5G deployments are likely to be non-standalone configurations in mid-bands together with mmWave frequencies 24-43.5 GHz. A combination of 4G and 5G bands is expected as traffic increases and new use cases mature. However, standalone 5G deployments will gradually get access to 4G spectrum in mid-low bands.

Mid-band spectrum is increasingly getting important in the mix of spectrum that should be available for 5G, and many nations around the globe have started taking steps to make 3.5 GHz band spectrum available for 5G services. For example, China, the European Union, Ireland, Japan, Russia, South Korea, the United Kingdom and USA have all recently taken steps to make 3.5 GHz spectrum available for 5G.

In India, the 3.3-3.6 GHz band has already been identified as the primary band for the introduction of 5G services in India before 2020. Making sure a timely deployment plan for this band is crucial for the 5G network rollout in India.

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