Prime Minister Narendra Modi will officially announce the launch of 5G in select cities starting today. The launch took place at the India Mobile Congress in Delhi. Airtel has confirmed that it will roll out 5G in eight cities starting today. Jio will first bring 5G to select cities and plan to cover the entire country by 2023.
Remember that 5G will launch in thirteen cities first in the first phase. But yes, full 5G coverage will take time, till 2024, as operators like Airtel have noted. Vodafone-Idea has not yet confirmed the rollout date for its 5G plans, though details should get approved soon.
5G in India: Which cities will get it first in the country
5G is the next generation of mobile communication networks, which is supposed to offer much faster speeds and broader use cases than 4G. The rollout of 5G is believed to accelerate the adoption of cloud gaming, AR/VR technology, the Internet of Things, etc. 5G also has several enterprise use cases.
He also inaugurated the India Mobile Congress 2022 exhibition ahead of the formal launch of 5G mobile telephony services in India. After inaugurating the exhibition at Pragati Maidan here, he went around pavilions set up by different telecom operators and technology providers to get a first-hand experience of what 5G can do. He started with Reliance Jio’s stalls, where he witnessed the ‘True 5G’ devices displayed and experienced the use case through Jio Glass. Flanked by Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnav and billionaires Mukesh Ambani of Reliance, Sunil Bharti Mittal of Bharti Airtel and Kumar Mangalam Birla of Vodafone Idea, he spent time understanding the indigenous development of end-to-end 5G technology.
The cumulative economic impact of 5G on India is estimated to reach USD 450 billion by 2035. Capable of supporting ultra-high-speed internet, the fifth generation or 5G service is expected to unleash new economic opportunities and societal benefits, serving as a transformational force for Indian society.
The three major telecom operators of the country will demonstrate one use case each in front of the Prime Minister to show the potential of 5G technology in India. Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) Chairman, Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio, will connect a teacher from a school in Mumbai with students in three different locations in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Odisha.
According to official sources, this will demonstrate how 5G will facilitate education by bringing teachers closer to students, obliviating the physical distance between them. It will show the power of Augmented Reality (AR) on screen and how that is being used to teach children across the country remotely, without the need for an AR device.
In the Airtel demo, a girl from Uttar Pradesh will witness a lively and immersive education experience to learn about the solar system with the help of virtual reality and augmented reality. The girl will share her knowledge of understanding with the Prime Minister by appearing on the dias through a hologram.
The Vodafone Idea test case will demonstrate the safety of workers in an under-construction tunnel of Delhi Metro by creating a ‘digital twin’ of the tunnel on the dias. The digital twin will help give safety alerts to workers in real time from a remote location. Modi will take a live demo from the dias to monitor the work in real-time through VR and artificial intelligence.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch 5G services in India on October 1, 2022, and also inaugurate the 6th Edition of India Mobile Congress 2022 to be held from October 1-4, 2022, at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi,” the release added.
The various use cases that will be demonstrated in front of the Prime Minister in the exhibition include precision drone-based farming; high-security routers and AI-based cyber threat detection platforms; automated guided vehicles; smart ambulances; augmented reality/virtual reality /mixed reality in education and skill development; sewage monitoring system; smart-Agri programme and health diagnostics, among others.