Since the first wireless call made in 1995, India has come a long way. As we stand at the threshold of a new generation of telecommunications, the 5G, India is transformed, with its digital economy now growing across all parameters.
I managed to have some time with Amit Marwah, Head of Marketing and Corporate Affairs (CMO), Nokia India, to dive deeper into where we are, and what 5G posits for our collective future.
Nokia’s MBiT study reports nearly 60x traffic growth in last 5 years and 13.5 GB average data usage per subscriber per month that puts India amongst the mature markets. As a country, we already have a huge appetite for large volume and high-speed data consumption. So, the need for 5G is now.
5G will be critical for post-pandemic economic recovery. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the demand for connectivity with consumers and professionals relying on high-quality and high-speed internet performance more than ever. Everyone has adapted to the new ways of working and conducting our daily lives amidst social distancing and public lockdowns, and increasingly using virtual meetings, remote classrooms, online shopping for groceries and medicine, online consultation with doctors. Pandemic restrictions forced many factories and industrial plants to close, disrupting production lines and supply chains. Remote-controlled machines that communicate over 5G suddenly became vital. They allowed human operators to steer drones, cranes and other industrial equipment with greater precision, speed and efficiency without having to be on site. This is just one of the many ways that 5G could be critical in enabling businesses to maintain operations and remain resilient in the face of any future disruption.
5G posits a new dawn – that’s much more agile, more powerful, and more transformative than any generation that has come before. The promise of low latency, high reliability, low power consumption, high bandwidth, multi-level security, and ubiquitous connectivity will enable an extraordinary experience for every industry, business, and society.
As per research at Nokia and Nokia Bell Labs, 5G is set to add $8Tn to global GDP by 2030. 5G-enabled industries have the potential to help drive sustainable economic growth and define the next decade of innovation. We all know 5G will bring lightning-fast mobile broadband. But the phone is the least exciting piece of the story. 5G will provide the connectivity for the fourth industrial revolution which will completely alter the way we live, work and play. 5G will also make it a sustainable revolution.
5G offers unimaginable possibilities to power Industry 4.0, from video monitoring, to fixed wireless access, immersive experiences and smart stadiums to e-health, machine remote control, cloud robotics, process automation, and assisted/autonomous vehicles.
The 5G Potential for India
5G has a huge potential for value creation in India as the pace of digitization is accelerating. 5G-enabled industries have the potential to help drive sustainable economic growth and define the next decade of innovation. Asset-intensive industries are adopting smart and autonomous systems fuelled by data and machine learning, to improve agility, productivity and efficiency. Private wireless is a key enabler to Industry 4.0. According to Nokia’s 5G Business Readiness Report, globally, over 71% of companies are planning to invest in 5G over the next five years to support their continued digital transformation initiatives.
Nokia has more than 290 private wireless enterprise customers worldwide. Nokia is active in rail, utilities, mining, aviation, maritime, manufacturing and logistics, public safety and smart cities. We are actively participating in various industry forums where the industry presents their requirements and we work together to offer solutions. Nokia uses its leadership position to ensure that 5G technology remains indispensably valuable to people and organizations that use it every day. We are driving standardization efforts to meet consumer, enterprise and industrial requirements not addressed in previous cellular standards, and we are constantly anticipating future needs by innovating new applications enabled by 5G.
5G: Enabling Remote Education and Healthcare
While the pandemic has caused a set-back in education and healthcare, leveraging digital connectivity to bring services such as education and healthcare to remote communities is fast emerging as the way of life. The post pandemic era has fostered the need to provide cost-effective and reliable broadband access to facilitate distance learning and online for student. 5G will play a key role in bridging the digital divide.
Nokia’s Private wireless solution – Nokia Digital Automation Cloud (DAC) with FastMile CPE — can help cities, counties and educational entities ensure students’ access to online learning from the comfort and safety of their homes.
5G will also help advance healthcare in post pandemic era. 5G will be able to handle billions of devices, whether smartphones, smart watches, smart scales or any other measuring device. The possibilities are unlimited – from drone-delivered medical supplies, to mind-reading wristbands, to virtual reality enhanced rehab, will need high performance connectivity that only 5G can provide. Some of the most rapid technological advancements over last 3 decades have been in Medicine and telecommunications. And today, telecommunication has the ability to accelerate medical advancement to improve the health and wellbeing of us all with 5G. Healthcare organizations can use intelligent infrastructure and digital technologies to reduce costs and support better, more targeted patient care. As the foundation of a modern healthcare service, 5G will help save lives by powering high-resolution video consultations, assistance robots and smart wearables to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of treatments. 5G will make telesurgery possible, allowing specialists in one hospital to control equipment in another facility hundreds of miles away.
Nokia is a global leader innovating the technologies at the heart of our connected world. We understand that smart, dynamic networks will be the foundation for improving health and creating better care for everyone. The Nokia Bell Labs Future X architecture provides a connected, digital platform that supports and fosters new applications and services for improved diagnostics, more efficient operations, and more accessible, higher quality care Nokia is a global leader innovating the technologies at the heart of our connected world. We understand that smart, dynamic networks will be the foundation for improving health and creating better care for everyone. The Nokia Bell Labs Future X architecture provides a connected, digital platform that supports and fosters new applications and services for improved diagnostics, more efficient operations, and more accessible, higher quality care.
