India’s 5G Leap

Strong digital infrastructure enables cities to respond to the needs of their residents while enabling economic inclusion, interconnectivity, business, and innovation. Given the widespread use and availability of smartphones, 5G has the potential to expand internet access and speed up mobile services in as close to real time as possible. No other country has seen a greater leap in 5G access over the last two years than India, which jumped 72 places in the Speedtest Global Index between 2022 and 2023 as result of the 5G rollout that began in 2022.

What was the challenge?

Indian mobile users have the highest rate of data consumption in the world, at 31 GB per month, which is projected to reach 75 GB per month by 2029. This high network congestion has proved challenging for the 4G network that is unable to meet demand, particularly in areas of high population density.

What action was taken?

To offload 4G traffic and address reliability and latency issues, India’s government has made significant efforts through the Telecom Regulatory Authority in India (TRAI) to streamline licensing, facilitate spectrum auctions, and proactively enable fiber deployments. The private sector actors leading the 5G rollout include India’s largest telecom companies, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio. Novel financing schemes like Reliance Jio’s record deal with Swedish Export Credit Agency (EKN) helped to finance and speed up the deployment of 5G equipment, beginning with pilots in some of the country’s largest cities, such as Mumbai.

Although 5G services will be present in 7,000 towns and 100,000 villages throughout India along with all major urban areas by March 2024, monetization remains a challenge, due in part to the absence of scalable applications that leverage 5G’s high-speed and low-latency capabilities. Plus more needs to be done to address further infrastructure gaps and complex state regulations. As such, the government has launched a new integrated “Bharat 5G Portal” for all related quantum, intellectual property rights, 5G works and 6G research.

What changed?

Residents of Mumbai have experienced an increase in mobile download speed from a monthly average of 11 mbps in 2021 to 44 mbps in 2023, registering an average annual change over the three-year period of about 128%.

See how Mumbai and other cities perform 5G access in the Dynamic Cities Dashboard.