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The challenge of getting India's 350-400 mn 2G users to upgrade to 4G or 5G

With India rolling out 5G services, can telcos get the sizeable 350-400 million 2G customers to upgrade to 4G, or even better - but very improbably - straight to 5G?

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The scenario for the next few years is pretty clearly discernible: 4G is here to stay for a long while, even though 5G is being launched

Surajeet Das Gupta New Delhi
With India rolling out 5G services, can telcos get the sizeable 350-400 million 2G customers to upgrade to 4G, or even better – but very improbably – straight to 5G?

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) Chairman Mukesh Ambani has publicly stated that he expects India to become 2G “mukht” (free) soon, but do remember he does not have any 2G customers because he does not run a legacy network and started out with 4G. His competitors, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL), as well as BSNL do, and they have to continue providing them services until they upgrade – which