From remote operations to better gaming, these sectors are gearing up for the 5G revolution

prime minister Narendra Modi on Saturday launched 5G telephony services that promise to bring super-fast internet to mobile phones, saying it marks the beginning of a new era and opens up an endless sky of possibilities. Later this month, fifth generation or 5G services will be rolled out in at least 13 cities with the aim of covering the entire country in the next two years.

Launch of services in India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2022, Modi said it was a special day for the world’s fifth largest economy.

“Today, 130 crore Indians are getting a great gift in kind 5G from the country and from the country’s telecom industry,” he said, adding that 5G is the beginning of a new era. “5G is the beginning of an endless sky of possibilities.”

With speeds several times faster than 4G and lag-free connectivity, 5G can enable billions of connected devices to exchange data in real time. It promises to revolutionize sectors from health and education to agriculture and disaster monitoring. 5G services will gradually roll out across the country over the next few years, with Reliance Jio promising to do so by December 2023 and Bharti Airtel by March 2024.

Industry experts News18 spoke to said the rollout of 5G services will have a huge impact on several sectors, from education to healthcare and gaming. “Robotics in healthcare and manufacturing, retail, education, artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality and education are some of the use cases,” said Nishant Bansal, senior research manager, IDC Asia/Pacific.

Health care

Danish Ahmed, founder of healthtrip.com, told News18 that the rollout of 5G could have a significant impact on medical tourism in India by enabling “telesurgery”.

In telesurgery, surgeons in one location can operate on patients in another by remotely controlling surgical robots or directing surgeons through a virtual presence in the operating room.

“Both of these require high-speed, low-latency internet, which 5G will enable. In the coming decades, we can expect thousands of remote surgeries where Indian dentists and surgeons will virtually treat their patients using remotely controlled surgical robots,” said Ahmed.

Neeraj Jha, founder and CEO of HanumanCare, said 5G will revolutionize the “healthcare technology” sector. “We will see more real-time transactions on a daily basis. There will be telemedicine and telesurgery practices, as well as increased teleradiology and telecardiology practices.”

Jha added that telemedicine is the need of the hour for rural India and all these surgeries will be done with 5G because of increased bandwidth and low latency services.

education

This is another booming sector that has witnessed the emergence of several unicorns during the Covid-19 pandemic. And now industry leaders believe the sector will benefit more from the launch of 5G.

Anup Raaj, founder and CEO of InstaPrep by 7 Classes, told News18 that the main advantage of 5G is that devices can very easily connect and communicate with each other without human interpretation, which can help create a smarter classroom that also known as the Internet of Things (IoT).

“The main advantage of 5G is AR and VR. These technologies can provide students with a better education. 5G will enable schools and institutes to become high-tech and reduce the labor force,” he said.

“Currently, only big companies like Google and YouTube are able to provide the infrastructure to broadcast high-quality content because of their powerful infrastructure. 5G will provide more opportunities for new technology companies to broadcast in real-time and create more accessible solutions for students,” noted Raaj.

Gaming

Neeraj Bora, founder of Surmount Business Advisors Pvt Ltd said that just as 3G and broadband enabled widespread video streaming and online gaming, 5G will lead to mass adoption of data-intensive use cases for a variety of applications across sectors.

Sanjay Lodha, co-founder of Netweb Technologies, said “non-important segments” like gaming and Metaverse will benefit from 5G.

According to Roland Landers, CEO, All India Gaming Federation, 5G will definitely be a game changer in online gaming. “Low latency and high bandwidth will enable thrilling online multiplayer gaming across all platforms. 5G will be essential for cloud gaming, where even low-spec hardware and smartphones can run high-quality games. Similarly, it will transform the AR/VR experience for the gaming industry,” he said.

Soham Thacker, CEO and founder of Gamerji, said 5G will expand the growth India is already seeing in the gaming sector, giving more opportunities to local publishers to deliver high-end mobile games that require faster speeds for competitive gaming. It will also expand the market for live streaming and online content.

Parth Chadha, co-founder and CEO of STAN, told News18, “5G will act as a catalyst for unprecedented development and progress in the already booming gaming industry in India.”

Transforming India

Anku Jain, Managing Director, MediaTek India, said 5G will be a key driver for Digital India initiatives and realizing the potential of Design in India, leveraging disruptive technologies like AI, cloud and others across the ecosystem.

“We envision India to become a major center for advanced semiconductor R&D and design. The deployment of 5G services will accelerate the next wave of digital transformation. MediaTek congratulates the people of India and we are extremely proud to be a part of this significant milestone in India’s journey towards Atmanirbharta.”

According to Devrup Dhar, co-founder of Primus Partners, 5G, along with education and healthcare, will significantly transform sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing and construction.

“Technologies like IoT will help farmers understand the crop cycle and soil condition in real time. With the talk of Agriculture 4.0 arriving in India with the advancement of technology in the sector, 5G will prove to be instrumental in helping farmers, easing their burdens and improving the quality of work.”

Sanjiv Barnwal, founder and CTO of e-commerce platform Meesho, said such a revolutionary technology would not only help digitize millions of small businesses in the country but also give impetus to the government’s goal of becoming a $5 trillion economy by 2025.

“As an e-commerce technology company, we are also excited to see its potential impact on the adoption of new innovations such as live/video commerce, especially in Tier 2+ markets,” he added.

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