5G a chance for India to move from back benches to vanguard: Sinha

The upcoming 5G technology offers India a chance to move to the forefront of technological evolution and the country cannot afford to miss its early adoption, Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said today.

"I never tire of repeating that we may have missed the 3G and 4G buses but 5G is a bus we can't afford to miss. It is an opportunity for us as a country to move from the back benches and be at the vanguard of this evolving transition," Sinha said after inaugurating first 5G test lab in the country.

The 5G centre of excellence and innovation lab has been set up by Swedish telecom gear maker Ericsson in partnership with IIT Delhi. The government has allocated 100 megahertz of spectrum to the lab for testing of 5G solutions.

Sinha said setting up of first 5G test lab in the country is in line with government's vision to move India to forefront on the global stage in this technology.

He said India's telecom footprint has expanded immensely in last four years with addition of 266 million mobile connections, nearly 190 million internet connections, increase in overall tele-density from 75 per cent in June 2014 to 93 per cent in March 2018.

"Our average per capita data usage has multiplied many fold from 62 megabyte to 1.6 gigabyte per month during the same period. Today we are the biggest consumers of mobile data globally. If we put this number in perspective then it is more than consumption of USA and Peoples Republic of China combined," Sinha said.

He said that government has increased spend on telecom infrastructure and services by six fold from Rs 9,900 crore between 2009-14 to Rs 66,000 crore between 2014-18