5G is knocking on the door, but where is the infrastructure?

 According to experts, an estimated investment of Rs 5 billion is needed to build telecom infrastructure in fiber and towers over the next four years. New Delhi: India is on the cusp of next-generation technology 5G. As telecom operators demonstrate new 5G use cases using trial spectrum, infrastructure readiness - the fiberization of sites and a sufficient number of towers - is lagging far behind ideal conditions. In order to roll out 5G services, at least 70 percent of towers will need to be fiberized from the current level of 33 percent. According to experts, an estimated investment of Rs. 5 billion is needed to build telecom infrastructure in fiber and towers over the next four years. For a successful 5G launch, investment in network densification will be required through the provision of fiber, small cells and active infrastructure sharing. The government plans to auction 5G spectrum in the second half of this year. The industry has been demanding reasonable prices for 5G spectrum given the industry's financial situation, and there will be only three private operators in the industry after the merger. But while data traffic is growing exponentially, infrastructure issues remain unresolved. According to Nokia MBiT's annual report, 4G services account for 99% of total data consumption, while mobile broadband subscriptions in India have more than doubled to 765 million and 4G data traffic has grown 6.5 times in the last five years. With the advent of 5G, data growth is expected to increase dramatically. Once 5G is up and running, fiberization of towers will be critical to carrying large amounts of data. Fiberization connects cellular base stations to points of presence and network cores. It will seamlessly support an increasing number of data users. Infrastructure Issues Compared to India, where 33% of towers are fiberized, 65-70% of towers in Korea are fiberized, compared to 80-90% in the US, Japan and China. In terms of fiber rolled out, India has far fewer fiber kilometers (fkm) per capita compared to several other major markets. China, with a population of 1.3 billion, and India, with 1.2 billion, have only one-tenth of a fkm per capita, or 0.09. According to the India Infrastructure Study, Japan and the US are ahead by 1.35 and 1.34 fkm, respectively, in this area in 2021. The industry needs to invest more in key components of the 5G network, namely spectrum, fiber optics and pan-India coverage towers. Given the precarious state of the minority, is there capital available for investment in the sector? Experts ask. According to estimates by the National Broadband Assignment and Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the fiber optic infrastructure will require an investment of about Rs. 2.2 billion to fiberize 70 percent of towers over the next four years, and Rs. 2.5 million to build 1.5 billion towers over the next four years. "It is necessary to stimulate investment in digital infrastructure for successful rollout of 5G. Currently, 34% of the towers are fibre optic and the government needs to make a big push to get at least 50% of the stations fibre optic," said SP Kochhar, Director General, COAI. COAI is a telecom industry body representing telecom companies Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, as well as telecom equipment manufacturers such as Ericsson and Nokia. While fiber is still the ideal choice, telecom operators can use microwave backhaul because of its capacity and ease of deployment advantages. Microwave backhaul refers to the transmission of voice, video and data between distributed sites and centralized points of presence via radio waves. The GSMA, the mobile network operators association, says most carriers rely on microwave backhaul solutions in the 7GHz to 40GHz bands in addition to the V-band (60GHz) and E-band (70/80GHz bands). "The demand for 5G infrastructure will be huge, and we are still in the early stages of implementation. However, despite the hassle of the COVID-19 rollout, the enthusiasm for 5G has grown tremendously and we are making strides in the right direction," said Purushothaman KG, Partner and Telecom Industry Leader, KPMG India. Akhil Gupta, vice chairman of Bharti Enterprises, recently said that 5G networks need a strong infrastructure, especially with existing towers fibrillated to 80-85 percent to handle the huge data traffic. "From day one, all these small base stations will have to be almost 100 percent fiber, and the interstate, intra-state and intra-city fiber networks will have to be significantly increased. The infrastructure required for 5G will be very different from the infrastructure required for 4G." But beyond fiber optics, there are other obstacles before 5G sees the light of day in India. "There is no doubt that fiber optics is one of the key requirements for successful 5G deployment. However, given the rapid growth in data usage and the upcoming deployment of 5G, fiber optics alone will not be enough to meet the infrastructure needs of large-scale networks," said TV Ramachandran, president of Broadband Forum India (BIF). Purushothaman added that the high cost of spectrum is one of the biggest challenges facing the industry, whose debt burden has increased due to high spectrum acquisition costs and the need for network upgrades. Right-of-way policies are another major obstacle to tower deployment and fiber rollout. "We have been working on aligning RoW rules with the Telegraph India RoW Rules 2016 and have been successful in many states. 33 states/UTs have notified their right-of-way policies under the RoW Rules 2016. Only specific cities such as Derry, Gujarat and the union territories of Daman and Diu are still not aligned with the 2016 Telegraphy RoW rules," Kochhar said. To explore new ways of deploying infrastructure, the telecom regulator TRAI has issued a consultation paper on the use of street furniture for small base stations and aerial fibre deployments. Street furniture such as utility poles, billboards, lamp posts, traffic signals and public structures such as pavilions and bus stops provide utility services to city residents with little or no change, and they can be used to install small cells and overhead fiber to provide telecommunications services as well. Small cells may be a solution to the infrastructure problem. "These are very dense, small base transceiver stations (BTS) that can serve up to several thousand users in a square kilometer area. These BTSs need to be placed on public street facilities such as utility poles, bus stops, neon signs, etc. Compared to 4G networks, a densified 5G network requires 5-10 times the number of small base stations required for a 4G network," Ramachandran said. The 5G network infrastructure will need to support 10 times more bandwidth than the 4G infrastructure currently supports. Key government programs such as BharatNet and Smart Cities will increase the demand for fiber deployments, requiring 100 percent tower fiber, said TR Dua, DIPA director general. To achieve this, cables must be rolled out at nearly 3.6 times the current rate, increasing from the current average of 350 kilometers per day to more than 1,251 kilometers per day. "Fiberization is at the heart of 5G. As small base stations become a key component of 5G deployments, fiber optic backhaul will be critical. This approach will help deliver an enhanced end-user experience by increasing data transfer speeds and eliminating the need for equipment to compete for bandwidth," Dua said. The Way Forward If 4G is about speed and feeds, 5G will be about creating experiences that offer a whole new set of options and revenue streams for telecom service providers. However, much of this also depends on spectrum pricing and infrastructure rollout. If we simplify the process of deploying small cell sites on street furniture, 5G will be a successful rollout. This is a cost-effective solution that will provide an off-the-shelf environment for 5G network rollout, which is critical to facilitating seamless network connectivity in India, Kochhar said, adding that RoW also requires immediate attention. "5G has the potential to connect the next billion users and fundamentally change the Internet economy. It will be a flexible network that can adapt to changing industry and consumer demands for speed, range and capacity. Service providers will need to densify and converge their networks and build a strong fiber-rich network backbone to build a viable 5G network architecture," Purushothaman said. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)