Telecom firms struggle to monetise amid incomplete 5G rollout
Telecom companies, which haven’t been able to offer a full 5G experience to customers, are failing to monetise it. Curiously, this seems to be the fate of the odd ones—1G, 3G and 5G.
India recently became the fastest 5G rollout nation in the world. The country’s top two carriers, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, have collectively splurged around $25 billion in buying 5G airwaves and launching their next-generation wireless broadband services. Between them, they have 165 million 5G customers. But neither of them has seen any serious monetisation of their 5G businesses even 18 months after they introduced next-gen networks.
Telecom companies attribute the challenge in monetisation to the continuing absence of compelling 5G use cases and applications for both retail and enterprise users and a yet-tomature devices ecosystem.
Industry veterans whom ET spoke to have a different take on why 5G monetisation hasn’t taken off in India. According to them, the cash registers are not ringing as mobile users in India have yet to experience 5G in the true sense. While telco biggies are using the fifth-generation mobile broadband technology to boost data services by way of faster speeds, they are still relying on 4G for voice services.
“Telecom operators need to provide genuine, 5G carpet coverage. The 5G coverage intensity must match 4G levels with no network holes. Telcos have mainly deployed 5G in high-frequency bands, which require them to deploy a higher 5G base station density to be able to match existing 4G coverage, but
