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Journalism of Courage
With Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio intensively deploying 5G networks all over India, the number of 5G subscribers in the country grew from 10 million in 2022 to 119 million by the end of last year.
According to the Ericsson Mobility report, Communications Service Providers (CSPs) are increasingly using 5G networks to offer Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) services. Out of the 310 globally sampled CPs for the study, 241 said they offered 5G-based fixed wireless access services as of April 2024. Amongst these, around 128 seem to be offering FWA services, marking a 29 per cent growth from 2022 to 2023.
It looks like the network providers worldwide are mainly using 5G networks to offer Enhanced Mode Broadband and Fixed Wireless Access. However, only 50 out of 300 CSPs worldwide are using standalone 5G networks, meaning most are yet to fully realise the capabilities the network has to offer.
Researchers also hint that there will be around 5.6 billion 5G users, accounting for 60 per cent of all mobile subscriptions by the end of 2029. While North America is expected to have a high 5G penetration by the end of the period, in India, 5G subscribers are expected to grow from 119 million to 840 million in the next five years.
The report also states that data consumed per smartphone in India will increase from 29GB per month to 68GB per month by the end of 2029. And while LTE won’t be going away anytime soon, the number of 4G subscribers in India is expected to come down from 740 million to just 410 million in the next five years.
In the first quarter of 2024, around 160 million new users made the switch to 5G, bringing the total number of 5G users to 1.7 billion worldwide. This figure is expected to reach 5.6 billion by the end of 2029.
