War Ground 5G: Airtel vs Jio - Fastest 5G Rollout

India is noting down another success story - world's fastest commercial 5G mobile technology roll out, thanks to Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel's continuous effort. Six months after 5G launched in the country, India's 5G customer base stands at 50 million (= 5 cr) which is nearly 5% of world's 5G subscriber base. Crisil Ratings predicts India will have 30 cr 5G subscribers in next 2 years (by March 2025), which would account for 1/3rd of total wireless data users of the country.

5G Updates: Jio 5G-SA vs Airtel-Vi 5G-NSA, Netcon-Athonet, Jio's 5G Ambulance

India's 5G goes mainstream as Jio and Airtel two of four telecom service providers have launched their 5G commercial services. But there is another excitement awaiting with 5G - that's private 5G networks. Adani Data Networks is the single company in the country who will launch only private 5G, while Jio, Airtel and Vi are capable of launching private 5G as the trio have acquired spectrum in 26GHz band. 

Private 5G networks are the latest excitement to the industry, as it would support Indian enterprises preparing for the Industry 4.0 revolution.

Home grown smaller IT infrastructure and digital solutions providers are working to bring their own private 5G solutions. In October 2022, Chennai based Netcon Technologies (https://netcontechnologies.com) has launched Private 5G solutions in collaboration with Italy based Athonet (https://athonet.com). The solutions were unveiled at the recently concluded India Mobile Congress 2022 in New Delhi. 

5G Auction of India: Adani Aiming New Vertex with Private 5G Solutions

26th July, 2022 can be a big day for Indian telecom. Well great golden days of Indian telecom is long gone. Presently only three private telcos and one govt. backed telco (BSNL & MTNL merger is unofficially done) are existing. But with the introduction of 5G, the telecom boom may reappear in the industry despite more debts will put on the carriers. 

The auction for 5G spectrum will start in few hours. Despite government brings huge platter of 72000 MHz of airwaves across 9 bands (600 MHz, 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz, 3.3 GHz, and 26 GHz), there are only four bidders - Jio, Airtel, Vi and Adani Data Networks. 

Mavenir Backing Open RAN Aggresively & Curious Case of India's 5G

Way back in September 2020, I wrote up on Open RAN networks and how it is reshaping future of telecommunications globally. After 1.5 years that O-RAN is very much alive and getting more traction from the industry. ORAN is now widely accepted globally. For those are uninitiated, Open RAN (Radio Access Network) offers the flexibility to the service providers to use hardware and software solutions from different companies in multiple layers. It's something like to use open source software. 

BSNL's Delayed Entry into 4G Expected to be a Lacklustre Show

Back in 2007 BSNL made some really great move which marked a benchmarking event on India's wired broadband sector - to upgrade to wired broadband speed to 2Mbps minimum in most plans. Though that time was Manmohan Singh's era, many argue that main game was started during Atal Bihari Bajpeyi's time. Whatever the man stood behind BSNL's growth is actually Dayanidhi Maran, who was minister of communications and information technology (22 May '04 - 16 May '07). 

When BJP came at the power, I personally thought that it will mark another success story of BSNL - however it is not, rather government is on the way of privatization of government assets like Air India is gonna be sold. BSNL may see the same fate with no proper planning and investment, though ministers keep pressing the bell that that will not happen.

Whatever it happens, the loss making state owned PSU telco - BSNL and MTNL will continue to make losses against the competitive mobile market of Airtel, Jio, Vodafone+Idea. 

In February 2018, the telecom minister Manoj Sinha clarified that there is no plan at present to merge these two state owned telco but there will be steps taken to create synergy between two including effective utilisation of human resources as well as land and buildings.