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Chairman of Reliance Industries and India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani Source: Network
There is no timetable for when India will commercialize 5G. Because when the 5G spectrum auction will be completed is also unknown.
The Indian government was originally scheduled to launch a 5G spectrum auction in 2020, but due to the impact of the epidemic, the plan has been delayed again and again. In May, the Indian government approved mainstream telecom operators such as Airtel, Reliance Jio, and Vodafone India to start 5G trials. In the trial, these telecom operators used the 5G pilot band issued by the Indian government, including the mid-band and millimeter-wave bands.
Indian operators' 5G trials, which were supposed to last six months, end on November 26, 2021, with the start of the 5G spectrum auction shortly after the end. But the latest news is that Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea have applied to India's Ministry of Telecommunications (DoT) to extend 5G trials for another year.
If the experimental phase is not over, large-scale commercial use will not be opened. But do Indian operators really need another year to do 5G trials? From a technical point of view, it is really not necessary.
China, the United States, and South Korea, which are in the first camp of global development, have carried out 5G large-scale commercial use in 2020 after technical trials and trial commercial deployment. Under the exploration and promotion of these "forerunners", many of the difficulties encountered in the development of 5G have been solved, such as 5G SA deployment and so on.
According to Ericsson's latest research report, more than 180 operators around the world have launched commercial 5G services, and by the third quarter of this year, the number of global 5G subscribers has reached 570 million.
There have been so many operators to launch 5G commercial services, hundreds of millions of users to use 5G services, Indian operators also want to 5G trials for another year, can only say that their attitude to 5G is "problematic".
Why?
First, India's 5G spectrum is particularly expensive. Earlier this year, India held a spectrum auction, and several operators spent billions of dollars to buy some resources in the 800Mhz, 1800MHz and 2300Mhz bands, but the 700MHz band suitable for 5G was "left unattended" because the reserve price was too high. Indian operators have released words to the Indian telecommunications sector, and if the reserve price is not lowered, the 700M cannot be auctioned successfully.
According to previous Indian media reports, the reserve price per unit of the 700MHz spectrum is 65.68 billion Indian rupees (923 million US dollars). In other words, if operators auction off 700MHz spectrum with 20M bandwidth, it will cost nearly $20 billion, so it is no wonder that operators only shout "can't afford it".
In contrast, Chinese operators are too happy, do not need to spend a huge amount of money to auction spectrum, only need to pay frequency occupation fees every year. In 2018, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance also further reduced the occupancy fee of 5G frequencies, such as the frequency occupancy fee of the 3000-4000 MHz frequency band, from the previous 8 million yuan / MHz / year to 5 million yuan / MHz / year. China Telecom and China Unicom each allocate 100 megabytes of resources in the 3.5GHz band, that is, 500 million yuan per year, which is a relatively light burden.
Source: National Development and Reform Commission
Second, after years of price wars, Indian operators are struggling to survive.
Muksh Ambani is a "fierce character", in 2016, its Reliance Jio broke into the Indian mobile communications market, and pulled out a "low-priced butcher knife", which quickly triggered a price war. After some light and light, India's mobile operators have shrunk from a dozen to three or four.
But the protracted price war has made these "winners" unaffordable, and the balance sheet is becoming more and more ugly. So in November this year, the market boss Reliance Jio, the second Bharti Airtel and the third Vodafone Idea announced price increases, raising the price of the package by about 20%-25%.
More critically, the AGR crisis hanging over the heads of Indian operators has not been eliminated. At the end of the last century, the Indian government reached an agreement with the operator to collect license fees and spectrum usage fees from the operator's adjusted gross revenue (AGR) on a fixed-scale basis each year, but the two sides disagreed on the composition of the AGR, with the Indian telecommunications sector believing that the AGR included the operator's entire business income, while the operator believed that the AGR included only the main revenue from the telecommunications service and did not include other revenues.
Previously, India's Supreme Court ruled in favor of India's telecommunications sector, requiring operators to pay the full amount that has been determined, for which Vodafone Idea "backs" $7.3 billion and Bharti Airtel "backs" $4.9 billion. Vodafone Idea, which owes the most money, has made it clear that it cannot afford the debt and may seek to withdraw from the Indian market.
In August, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea filed a review application, asking India's Supreme Court to amend the "arithmetic error" and not to include revenue from non-telecom projects in the AGR. But so far, there is no final news.
Moreover, India is still in the 4G dividend period and has no incentive to develop 5G.
According to Ericsson's research report, the average traffic per smartphone in India will reach 18.4GB/month in 2021, far exceeding the global average of 11GB/month, ranking second in the world, and 13.9GB/month in Northeast Asia, including China. Moreover, there is still a relatively large space for 4G development in India, and its 4G penetration rate in 2021 is about 68%.
From the perspective of Indian operators, the development of 4G is the most practical choice. The new frequency bands obtained through auctions at the beginning of this year have been used by Indian operators on 4G to improve the coverage and capacity of existing 4G networks, thereby expanding the proportion of 4G users and data service revenue.
Author/IT Times reporter Qian Lifu
Editor/Hao Junhui Kicked Sister
Typography/Ji Jiaying
Photo: National Development and Reform Commission Oriental IC
Source/IT Times public account vittimes