Govt to address return on 5G investments, pressure on spectrum to rise

The government is looking at addressing challenges related to lack of returns on 5G investments and at the same time need for expanding telecom infrastructure arising out of increase in data usage, a senior official said on Friday.

During a panel discussion at ICRIER Prosus Centre for Internet and Digital Economy event, telecom secretary Neeraj Mittal said that the median data speed in India has increased from about 99-100 megabit per second (mbps) in September to 151 mbps and on an average an individual consumes about 29 gigabytes of data every month.

He said that most people are consuming data for the purpose of entertainment which means that there is a need to continuously augment telecom infrastructure.

"In terms of challenges, we are going to see a lot of pressure on spectrum, as the data flow increases, we have to find new spectrum for mobile usage and broadband. A lot of capex will be required as we move from 5G to 6G. Elsewhere use of 5G and providing them returns because we have not been able to utilise used cases of 5G anywhere in the country. We have spent a lot of money. We have only seen higher speed from 4G to 5G," Mittal said.

Private operators are estimated to have invested around Rs 70,000 crore in telecom infrastructure and radiowave assets in 2024 alone to expand the coverage of next-generation 5G services.

Both Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel are providing access to 5G service for free in 4G subscription plans. Vodafone Idea and BSNL are yet to roll out 5G services.

Mittal said that BSNL has completed installation of 80,000 mobile towers for 4G services which is one of the biggest deployments by an operator.

He said that another challenge we face is affordability of devices which many in the country are unable to afford.

"These are the challenges that the government is looking into and over time work on all of them," Mittal said.

Telecom players have been demanding that BigTech firms- Google, Amazon, Meta, Netflix etc should pay revenue share to support building of network infrastructure in the country.

According to telecom industry body COAI has been demanding that a fair usage policy should be imposed on foreign apps as the bulk of data load on the network is directed towards them.

While industry bodies representing internet firms have called that the move to levy any cost on select apps will lead to violation of net neutrality rules, COAI has contested the same.