Indian carriers are making 4G widely available in the country, and it looks like they're starting to trial next-generation 5G services. Nokia Networks is in discussion with telecom vendors over the feasibility of 5G.
Talking to Hindustan Times, Nokia Networks Head of Mobile Broadband Milivoj Vela said:
It will be used for purposes beyond voice and data communications carried by people today. It will has less than 1 millisecond latency that will be used by machines for quick action like for to stop in case it identifies any obstacle, surgery from remote location etc.Discussion about spectrum (at global level) in which 5G will operate will finish by 2019. Commercial 5G deployment will start in 2020. Then you will see 100Mbps guaranteed speed everywhere.One cell (mobile antenna) in 5G will be able to handle 1000 times more data traffic in 2020 compared to data traffic in 2010. We have already achieved 1 million devices connected to single cell site and 30Gbps speed on 73GHz band in lab.
5G will operate in the spectrum band above 6000MHz, which is significantly higher than the 700MHz to 2.5GHz frequencies in use currently. Wide-band frequencies have the potential to offer much more throughput, with minimum downlink speeds in the vicinity of 1Gbps. The downside is that the range covered by 5G signals is limited, requiring the installation of massive antennas to ensure wide coverage.
We're still several years out from 5G becoming available to consumers, with a commercial launch expected sometime in 2020 (or beyond). In the meantime, what sort of download speeds are you guys seeing on cellular networks in India?
