The announcement of the introduction of a solid roadmap on 5G by June by telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan has given a ray of hope to the telecom operators in India. In an interaction with Electronic Bazaar, Rajan Mathew, director general, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said that as the demand for 5G is intensifying in the country, India as a user should need to move up in the value chain.
He pointed out that one of key things that is driving 5G demand is the customers expectations. The telecom industry is witnessing humongous demand from the customers because almost every market segment whether it be entertainment, banking or automobile are today making use of networks. “We have 1.5 billion people demanding the 5G service but the question is where is the money. I believe the only way to monetise this opportunity is by owning the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) because eventually that is going create the job opportunities and economic development” he added.
Highlighting the need for standardisation, he suggested that for seamless and faster implementation of 5G the telecom operators need to adopt India specific standards. “ Right from the very beginning we need to ensure that our interest and our requirement are very well aligned to a proper standard because if they are not then the applications which want to ride will not be able to ride,” he highlighted.
When asked about the recommendation which COAI wants to put forth to the government, he said that 5G rollout requires massive investment on infrastructure side which sums up closely to 10 billion dollar per year. Most of this are going to come from foreign sources, he highlighted. “The biggest problem that we are facing today is to address the financial needs. I think government can play a very critical role here. Beyond policy and appropriate regulatory environment, the government should also provide an economic environment for the operators to survive and make the investments. ”
(By- Shruti Mishra)
