We spoke to Lt. Gen. Dr. S.P. Kochhar, Director General, COAI, immediately after India’s 5G spectrum auction to get some insights about the Indian telecommunications industry and its 5G rollout roadmap.
We also asked the COAI Director General the age-old question about EMF radiation fears of 5G frequency bands, how 5G will boost the Indian economy, and what steps the industry is taking to safeguard 5G networks in terms of national security. As the impending 5G India launch gets closer, read following edited excerpts from our interview below:
Q) Is 5G still safe? Is 5G going to add to people’s worries from a health and safety perspective in India?
This question should now be put to rest because the Indian IT Minister himself has gone on record saying that 5G networks are very safe. Several international studies have been done on this topic saying that the EMF emanating out of mobile towers are non-ionizing, and hence safe for human beings. And even if you don't know all this, just look at birds who go and nest on these towers, they build their nests and nurture their young ones, and nothing happens to them. So how can it be harmful to humans?
Also Read: India 5G Spectrum Explained: Why 700MHz Band Matters For Best 5G Coverage
This is just a myth propagated by people who are talking about unsafe 5G because they have vested interests to serve, nothing else. But as far as scientific evidence is concerned, there is nothing, not even 0.1% evidence to suggest that 5G networks are unsafe.
Q) How will 5G services roll-out across India over the next few months and years?
What is emerging is there'll be two types of 5G rollouts happening across India. One will be to cater to the demands originating from metros and the second rollout would be related to enterprise 5G services which will open up new markets, applications and use cases, and that’s where the maximum 5G revenue is going to be generated from.
You also need to understand that India is a very price sensitive market. There’s a very good likelihood of new 5G tariffs to go up from existing data rates. Expecting a common citizen to really see any benefit and pay more for a new connection or having to buy a new phone to get a 5G connection is going to be difficult. Don’t get me wrong, there will be lots of people who will sign-up for 5G services from day one, but the scale will not be comparable to people who are already subscribed to 4G.
Telecom operators will have to mix and match where they deliver the promise of 5G speed and coverage to 5G enthusiasts no matter what. And also for existing 4G users or people migrating from 2G or 3G. In some places non standalone 5G will also work, while some places will have only standalone 5G deployments, with network slicing and other segmentation depending on the use case.
Q) How do you react to social media memes claiming with 5G launch Indians will finally see promised 4G network speeds?
There are multiple factors that impact network speeds, and it’s harsh to blame only the telecom operators for it. Before I joined COAI, I also used to think that telcos are not doing their job properly. But after spending two years in the ecosystem, I realised that there are environmental factors in play which people don’t realise. I'll give you two major ones – power capacity and fiber infrastructure increase for good network signals.
Our telecom infrastructure across the country requires more power to run at optimal levels. The permissions, clearances required for procuring more power are very difficult and also quite expensive. The power that is permitted to be transmitted to telecom towers is one-tenth of international levels, and more towers are difficult to deploy.
The second reason is the need for more fibre towers, and how more towers need to be connected with each other and with the network through fibre so they can carry the capacity of data that they are aggregating on the edge. That requires a huge amount of effort and the government is aware of it. The central government and private industry want to move fast to remove this bottleneck, but local and state governments don't let us put fibre through their territory.
We want more towers to be deployed, and this is where we start. We are expecting about 10 times the speed of what we have today, 10 times the capacity of what we have today, but high-speed 5G radio signals do not penetrate walls and therefore require indoor building solutions to be implemented. All of these things are work-in-progress, and there are a lot of innovations which are happening to work around some of these practical 5G deployment problems. A lot of trials are happening and we hope the 5G networks will offer a better overall experience than 4G or before.
Q) How will 5G roll-out across India impact us positively?
While e-commerce takes over 78 percent of the traffic on any network across all Indian telecom operators, the bandwidth requirement of e-commerce traffic is actually very low – as it isn’t high bandwidth like video streaming or online gaming. So e-commerce in terms of 5G will be an application that requires teledensity, but will not affect the speed and latency that will be required in different areas.
Use cases like 3D holograms or teleporting your e-presence or even online gaming will get some boost, but something like telemedicine services will seriously ramp up across the length and breadth of the country thanks to 5G.
Another thing that will be grappled quickly due to 5G deployment is a merger of telecom, electronics and computing to be treated as one silo – it can no longer be looked at separately from a legal, regulatory and policy framework, which currently is not happening.
Cyber security has still been outside the domain of the telecom sector at the core infrastructure level, but that also needs to be worked into as a fundamental pillar of network security. Cyber cannot be an afterthought in the building and deployment of telecom networks anymore, the work has to be started from the drawing board, on both telecom technology as well as cyber security.
Q) How will indigenous Indian 5G hardware ramp up to safeguard our 5G networks against Chinese ODMs?
The Indian government has already taken a slew of measures which will ensure that this (deployment of indigenous Indian telecom hardware) happens as fast as possible. For now, the components which have been used in our telecom network can be divided into passive and active. Passive isn’t a problem, we import industry-standard hardware from outside but yes, from the Make in India perspective, those components should also be made in India.
The active network needs software plus hardware stack expertise. The software component India doesn’t have a problem with, we have always been making software for the entire world and research labs of the world, and we can do it. But we can’t yet do both hardware and software, because the hardware piece of the puzzle is difficult to crack in a hurry. The design and manufacture of semiconductor chips require massive investment, and it’s not going to happen overnight. Currently, a lot of emphases is being made on imparting knowledge, skills and expertise to get these semiconductor companies to manufacture in India, incentivized by the government.
For now, sensitive telecom components will need to be imported from abroad. The Indian government has also made a conscious decision that they will continue with the past practice of using international standard-based telecom equipment so that we are not depending on any one country for our needs. Of course, we are not satisfied with that, we want an ecosystem to be created in India, rightly so, where we can manufacture, we can design and consume in India and export outside to the world.
The advantage of China was cheap labour and economies of scale. We have cheap labour, what we don't have is economies of scale. We don't have a manufacturing base, so incentives have now been offered to these companies to come to India, and start making in India. China has been taken out of the ecosystem in many parts of the telecommunications market, and our strategy is to not only Make in India for Indian telecom needs but also to eventually become a net exporter. It will take some time, but these steps are being monitored at the highest levels of the Indian government, because of what’s at stake. So there’s reason to believe the implementation of any indigenous hardware in the telco stack will also be faster.
Q) How will 5G help Indian telcos evolve in the near future?
I can make a small prediction here: that the telecom business of providing networks is not going to be a paying business anymore. Right. So you will eventually find that newer business verticals will be developed by these Indian telecom operators themselves – not just for large businesses, but even for us normal citizen-consumers. Customers will increasingly be offered consolidated 360-degree package solutions because these offerings will come from telcos themselves who understand business on one hand and 5G consumption on their network. The hope is that enough consumers will find these offerings to be transformative enough within the next year or so.
All responses attributed to Lt. Gen. Dr. S.P. Kochhar, Director General, COAI (Cellular Operators Association of India)
What do you think about the Indian 5G services launch slated to begin very soon? Are you looking forward to using 5G data services on your 5G-enabled smartphone or are you happy with 4G data speeds? Let us know in the comments below, and keep reading Digit.in for more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates.
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Jayesh Shinde
Executive Editor at Digit. Technology journalist since Jan 2008, with stints at Indiatimes.com and PCWorld.in. Enthusiastic dad, reluctant traveler, weekend gamer, LOTR nerd, pseudo bon vivant. View Full Profile
