5G Updates: Reduced Capabilities in 5G or 5G RedCap NR

5G RedCap NR (Concept by Microsoft CoPilot AI)

RedCap is abbreviation for Reduced Capabilities in 4G or 5G. This tech was conceptualized during Release 17 but it is getting traction in the era of 5G-NR (New Radio). 5G RedCap is also known as 5G NR-Light.

If you can remember Uninor or Telenor India has launched 4G over 1800MHz in India - that was narrow band LTE or NB-LTE. RedCap can be utilized in such scenario. 

"5G RedCap is introduced to bridge the gap between 4G and 5G. The minimum 5G requirement earlier was 100 MHz bandwidth and 4 RX antennas. This was not suited for low-cost and battery-involved LPWA IoT applications. 5G RedCap is defined to power low complexity LTE and NR devices with minimum hardware requirement. It functions in the FR2 frequency range of 5G NR making a whole new band of frequencies available for current 4G devices and initiates the migration from 4G to 5G."

Road to 6G: 3GPP's Release 18 or 5G-Advanced

5G Advanced - AI Generated Photo (by Opera Aria) 

By the end of June, 2024 The 3GPP or the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, the organization responsible for developing protocols for mobile telecommunications, has introduced Release 18, also dubbed as 5G-Advanced after long work of 3 years. 

It should be reminded that in 2011 the 3GPP also used a similar 'Advanced' upgrade tactic during 4G-LTE days. LTE-Advanced came with Release 10 of 3GPP. 5G came with the 3GPP Release 15 in 2017. 

Interestingly as soon  as 5G-Advanced is launched, the specifications are already available to 5G equipment vendors. Telecom equipment vendors are happy to get it, as it would open a new road of revenue. 

5G India: New Updates

With 5G technology, Indian service providers have got ample of opportunities. Many experts believe that India has fastest large-scale deployment of 5G infrastructure in the world. 

First Jio or Airtel started with OpenRAN architecture - where hardware is kept compatible with other softwares too (like you bought HP laptop, which comes with Windows, but you uninstalled it, and installed Ubuntu Linux). 

BSNL 5G by mid-2024 

State owned operator BSNL did not depend on Chinese vendors (Huawei and ZTE) for 4G roll out - the contract went to Tata Consultancy Services led consortium. The advanced purchase order (APO) for deployment of 4G network across India on behalf of BSNL is valued over Rs 15,000 crore. The consortium includes government-owned Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) and Tata Group owned Tejas Networks. BSNL's West Zone's 4G deployment will be done by Central govt. backed ITI. This contract is worth ₹3,889 crore. 

India's telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, by the end of May, announced that BSNL 4G will go live in 2 months, and 5G upgrade will be started in November-December of 2023, and 5G from BSNL will go masses by March 2024 - which I personally believe unachievable. BSNL may launch 4G commercially at Q4 of 2023, and that home made 4G-5G stack BSNL is deploying will be upgraded to 5G/NR by middle of 2024. 

Jio True 5G: Trial Review at Barrackpore

Though India's first spectrum auction for 5G airwaves was conducted in July this year, the telecom service providers - Jio and Airtel did make a hurry to launch 5G, unlike 3G or 4G. 5th generation of telecom services went mainstream in India on October 1st, 2022. That's just 2 months to get 5G live. Well that's fast, and thanks to DoT, all operators got trial spectrum to conduct 5G trials and tests on their 2G/3G/4G networks. Debt ridden telco Vi is yet to announce its 5G debut. 

India Got Two 5G Supported Smartphones in February 2020: Will You Buy it?

5G spectrum auction in India is yet to be a  reality but smartphone makers have started launching 5G/NR supported Android smartphone. Standing at 1st of March, 2020 we have iQoo 3 (12G/256G at Rs 44990) and realme X50 pro 5G (6G/128G at Rs 37999 and so on). 

Just get back to 2012, Airtel had launched 4G - it was limited to WiFi pocket routers. Even after 3 years when Jio started persuing its 4G dream, they had to create their own device ecosystem (LYF phones, JioFi and JioPhones). Embracing 4G/LTE was not easy. Operators did have to wait until 4G ecosystem evolved and became cheap for mass adaption. The Chinese companies like Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo took the opportunity and became the market leaders. That opportunity was lost by Indian handset manufacturers and their hard earned market was out of grip. 


Interestingly we have no 5G rollout in India right now and already two 5G phones are commercially launched by two relatively new companies making 5G as a USP for their flagship phones. It should be noted that companies have launched first of 5G phones under their sub brands - Realme with Oppo in background, while iQoo is a sub brand of Vivo. In few days Samsung, One Plus, Xiaomi, Asus and others will also launch 5G supported phones. 

But spending atleast Rs 5k - 12k extra for a technology not available in country does not make sense (note iQoo 3 has 2 variants. 4G & 5G phones have Rs 8k price difference, while all Realme x50 pro are 5G supported). First 5G dates are yet to be confirmed in the country as there is no deadline for 5G spectrum auction and cash deprived operators are not sure to spend money on a developing tech. Indian government will charge hefty for 5G spectrum, and at this moment only Jio is in the position to buy it. 

BSNL is still waiting for pan India 4G spectrum, and I doubt they will be given any 5G spectrum before the auction and the state own PSU may not accept it even if they were given as they also have to pay as per auction price. 

Secondly 5G radio are on higher bandwidth (therefore lesser penetration) and a population densed country like India may not take advantage of it unless operators put numerous base stations at one go (more than 10,000 BTS in every metro city). So you may not see sudden increase of speed with 5G like we saw during migration from 3G to 4G. Also unless you have many smart devices there will be no major use of 5G enabled Internet of Things (IoT). 

Thirdly we don't know anything about 5G spectrums in India. But these two smartphones have different 5G bandwidth support. iQoo 3 supports NR N41/N77/N78 while realme X50 pro 5G supports 5G NR N1/N41/N78/N79. N1 stands for 2100 MHz, N41 for 2500 MHz, N77 for 3700 MHz, N78 for 3500 MHz, N79 for 4700 MHz. All these bands are on FR 1 (frequency range 1). These phones do not support any of FR 2 bands of milimeter range (mmWave, between 24 - 100 GHz). 

In short 5G is being developed and even though 5G is getting global traction by the carriers it needs finetuning. As per GSMA report 5G adoption will be slower, expecting only 15% 5G users by 2025. However after the recent COVID-19 outbreak it could slower than expected. 

On my personal note, 5G will not be commercially available in India on mass scale before 2023. Before that global 5G market should be mature enough by infrastructure wise and ecosystem wise (like AI & IoT).

So the answer to the question of buying 5G phone right now by spending Rs 35k+ is NO. 

Why there is a price difference between 4G and 5G phones despite both having same SoC?

As we can see, Realme has given 5G support on all of its X50 Pro smartphones. But iQoo has same model with 4G and 5G variation with same Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 chipset. The price difference is due to addition of 5G modem on top of Snapdragon 865. Though it's not sure which of 5G modem added on these two smartphones, I expect it could be X55 modem which supports peak 5G speed at 7.5 Gbps, peak LTE speed at 2.5 Gbps and 5G Dual SIM support

Read more about 5G modems - Road to 5G: 4G/4.9G/5G Modems