Quite like the Taxi-Meters in Goa, it’s perennially “nearly” there. So also was the 5G…(sorry, in the present-day context, an “Announcement”, next, a “Launch”, then an “Inauguration” (of say, “one lane”, ..or more appropriately “in 8 Metros”) and finally the “Dedication-to-the-People” function, all of those Big-Bangs, leaving you with the nagging worry, what’s there for me in it, and at what costs? And then the philosopher in you whispers through Sara Donati’s “Anna” in “The Gilded Hour” and you catch yourself reminding you, “No one ever does anything out of charity, every choice we make benefits ourselves directly or indirectly. Even if it looks like a sacrifice, the alternative would be unbearable in some way. If I hadn’t helped, I wouldn’t sleep well, and I need my sleep.” I thought, now that 5G is announced in March 2023, its only in the fitness of things for me, as a past Finance and Info-Tech professional having seen the birth and growth of five generations of Network Technologies in India, to speak of the 5G, its meaning, what’s different, what the gains are, what “sacrifices” and how it’s important to me, in simple lay-man’s words, (more from the lay users’ point of view) and the change it seeks to make, to him.
My Take: So, first things first, 5G obviously stands for “5th Generation” of Network Technology, coming after as it does, the 1st Generation of the 1980s, for analogue voice-transmission only, the 2nd Generation in the ’90s, predominantly the “CDMA”, the 3rd Generation of the Millennium, the advent of the “Mobile Data” and the 4th Generation of the 2010s, the Mobile Broad-Band. What it means? It’s a different technology in short, the OFDM (Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing), a method of modulating a digital signal across several different channels to reduce interference. Let’s try a simple example, in the initial years, you could send a “text message”, after years you could chat one-to-one, after more years, you could have a group and chat or message simultaneously with different users on different devices, but still on the same channel. Now just imagine, you send your test reports to the doctor, the doctor speaks to the patient, you call the ambulance, see the availability of beds in 10 hospitals (along with the pictures for your decision making), direct the ambulance driver accordingly, book the beds, pay the fees, check your patient in and initiate insurance proceedings, obtain confirmations and get reports, all of this in 10 minutes of time. Also, it’s not necessary for YOU to do all this, each of the devices, these people in the chain are carrying can talk to you and also to each other through IOT, on different channels, significantly cutting out unproductive “Interfaces” and yet not create a messy tamasha.
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It’s 5G! Cutting out the mumbo-jumbo, it delivers high speeds, (just for an order of the magnitude if LTE (“Long Term Evolution”) (just check your Hand-Sets, most Hand-Sets which boast of “4G-enabled” are actually LTE sets), if that LTE offers a maximum speed of 100MBPs, a True 4G will give you a speed of 1GBPs, when a 5G is designed to move its data at 20GBPs (at Peaks).
At low latencies, (much faster arrival over the network itself) at less than 1 milli-second compared to 10 of the 4G it utilises Band-Width better and it’s designed to get the most out of every bit of spectrum — from low bands below 1 GHz, to mid bands from 1 GHz to 6 GHz, to high bands known as millimetre wave (mmWave) with stronger signal.
Now the expenditure part. With lack of clarity in prices of the new 5G-enabled handset, I’m also apprehensive of the costs, in terms of the network equipments, the spectrum fees and its recurring costs if any. If you asked me, at the end bigger volumes handled means lesser costs per unit, so there should logically be savings at higher efficiencies. Now initially, one service-provider talks of “non-standalone” networks, which means, they’ll use the current 4G network-hardware with 5G software, bit of a Bullet Train running on the “Begusarai Passenger’s” tracks.
The other service-provider however, speaks of 5G Standalone Network at launch itself. The Investments of the service-provider in the Standalone Network, is reportedly, a mind-boggling 2-trillion-rupees; scary! “no charity…” in the words of Anna! Just for an order of the magnitude, the 5G auction targeted 72,000 MHz of Air-Waves fetched Rs 1.5 trillion, that too with just 7% of hand phones in India being 5G enabled. You get full advantages of the technology only when the entire stakeholders’ club is 5G compliant. That’s distant.
What’s more in it for me? Well, following from greater speeds, multiplicity of concurrent channels as explained, lesser Network Latency, it brings a sea change in logistics, particularly inward and outwards, storages, material handling, transport planning and last mile delivery. Our logistic costs today are a whopping 14% of our GDP against a Global Average of 10% (IMF). Similarly, in fields of Banking and Insurance, in fields of Intelligent Agriculture, in fields of Education and in Service Deliveries where-ever you need Big Data, or you need to deploy Block-Chain Technology, 5G is simply indispensable. Today, 60+ countries have already deployed 5G in their communication, an International “Economy Study” finds 5G enabling up to $13.1 trillion worth of goods and services, could alone support up to 22.8 million jobs.
And before I conclude: All this requires, Planning, Preparation, Training and Change Management at the users’ end. Time waits for nobody! We need still attractive tariffs and in the words of Anna, “every choice for benefits we make”, must “involve a sacrifice”, only, that sacrifice should not be allowed to go in vain!
(Binayak Datta is a
finance professional)
