Indian carriers continue to face challenges in monetizing 5G services. Fixed wireless access (FWA) services are advancing and there are signs of potential use cases in areas such as healthcare, education and manufacturing, but the industry has yet to uncover the key formula for success .
While the industry may boast of having achieved the fastest 5G deployment in history in any country, there is a notable lack of innovative use cases emerging, either in the mobile consumer segment or the enterprise industry. As a result, monetization remains a distant hope for carriers.
Experts say businesses remain unconvinced by the significant benefits 5G claims to bring in terms of improved efficiency and productivity through the deployment of diverse solutions across multiple industries. And for the consumer segment, the only use case emerging with 5G is high data speeds.
The potential is huge for various use cases such as IoT, smart cities, and Industry 4.0. However, for a carrier to effectively monetize his 5G investment, it is important to identify and scale use cases in collaboration with ecosystem partners that will facilitate revenue generation. Experts expect 5G monetization to be gradually rolled out over the next few years through various applications.
FWA has brought some bright spots to the industry. Both carriers introduced 5G FWA services in metropolitan areas last year. However, it will be some time before carriers can make significant progress in this area and see a return on investment. Randeep Sekhon, his CTO at Bharti Airtel, recently said that in India, he believes FWA will “definitely” not be monetized as carriers cannot use fiber everywhere as it is expensive and time consuming. said. “5G use cases will definitely emerge and they will be monetizable use cases. Ultimately for India, the main funding will always be in eMBB (enhanced mobile broadband) ” 5G, cloud, Internet of Things (IoT) and automation will help create new use cases.
India’s top two incumbent telcos, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, have completed pan-India 5G rollout, accumulating over 100 million unique 5G users. Both carriers have also launched 5G fixed broadband services to monetize their networks. According to GSMA Intelligence, at the end of 2023 there will be 1.6 billion 5G connections, which is expected to rise to 5.5 billion by 2030. 261 carriers in 101 countries have launched commercial 5G services, and a further 90 carriers in 64 markets have launched commercial 5G services. 5G is expected to launch within the next few years.
As 5G technology matures, consumer demand grows, and new use cases emerge, the industry will gradually realize a return on investment. Until then, the industry must continue to invest in network infrastructure, foster innovation, and adjust business models to seize the opportunities presented by 5G technology.
The road to 5G monetization will be a marathon.
