5G device penetration already at 10%, speed of rollout to define success: Nokia Bell Labs veteran

The speed of rollout of 5G networks will determine which carrier will take the leadership position in the Indian market, said Harri Holma, a Nokia veteran and fellow at Nokia Bell Labs.  

Considering 5G as an even battleground for Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel that have taken pan-India 5G airwaves, Holma said that the carrier having the larger radio capacity and most efficient use of the spectrum would benefit the most and the type of 5G architecture – non-standalone (NSA) or standalone (SA) — may not matter.  

“What matters, is rollout speed. It’s not about the architecture but who’s providing more radio capacity, using new spectrum most efficiently, which will be the differentiating factor. I don’t know who is going to the fastest here but the rollout speed, that is what is going to define success,” Holma said.  

“The rollout speed is defining how fast you can make the signal available ubiquitously,” he added, underlining that operator execution will lead to customers getting high speed connectivity on 5G.  

Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel will be going head-to-head to launch 5G services in the coming months, with No 1 carrier Jio targeting launch by Diwali in several cities including the metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata and No 2 carrier Airtel planning to begin 5G services within this month or early next month. While Jio plans to provide pan-India 5G coverage on its SA network by 2023-end, Airtel is aiming to cover urban-India by December next year. Both carriers are yet to announce their tariff plans for 5G services, even as Jio has said it will provide ‘affordable’ 5G services.  

Besides tariffs, availability of affordable devices will continue to be the other factor, but Holma said that as per Nokia’s estimates 5G device penetration in India was already more than 10% in metros, which meant that as of the first year India had a ready market of 80 million 5G devices that could latch on to 5G networks.  

“5G device penetration is already at 10%. So, out of 850 million smartphones, 80 million can be on 5G in the first year, which could very well be 100 million by next year,” he said.  

This could bring India alongside many developed global markets in terms of 5G adoption in a short span of time, which will be a shift from previous trends of the country lagging 5-6 years behind global markets, he said.  

Estimates from research firm Omdia suggest that globally, there were about 800 million 5G subscribers as of June which are set to rise to 1 billion by the year end. 

The rate of adoption of 5G services in India could be much faster when compared to adoption of 4G services, he said. 

“India 5G penetration maybe one year or one and a half years behind the advanced markets like Europe, or the US, so it’s following a rapid trajectory. In a year’s time India could be well ahead of Europe in a year’s time,” he said. The three to five times increase in network coverage and 10 times increase in data speeds will be the biggest contributing factors to the adoption, which in turn can open doors for carriers for monetising through higher usage plans priced at higher levels than the average usage plans.  

Fixed wireless access services, which essentially mean providing fibre-like speeds through a wireless router in a home or small business premises without the need for fibre or copper to reach the premises, will also provide a large monetisation opportunity for carriers, he said. Reliance Jio is planning to increase its Air Fiber reach to 100 million homes from the present 10-15 million homes.