India announced a plan for 6G technology just a few short months after the launch of its 5G services, with the intention of becoming a global voice in this arena.
Although India may have been behind its global counterparts in the 4G and 5G space, the country plans to move quickly forward in the 6G space in order to shape the global agenda on 6G technology. This is despite the fact that India may have been late to the 4G and 5G space.
On account of the ‘Bharat 6G’ vision document unveiled earlier this week by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said, “the vision document presented today will become a major basis for the 6G rollout in the next few years.”
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The Impact of the Bharat 6G vision document in India
India’s 6G innovation taking the lead is the vision document’s main goal. India intends to build 6G technology standards in the first two years of its mission, starting in 2023.
The second phase, lasting five years until 2030, will establish a 6G ecosystem. The goal is to give high-speed internet one thousand times faster than 5G’s one gigabit per second (gbps).
The vision statement said, “The new 5G technology promises a speed range of 40 – 1,100 Mbps with the potential to hit maximum speeds of 10,000 Mbps through technologies such as millimetre-wave spectrum and beamforming. While 5G itself seems very futuristic as of now, 6G will offer ultra-low latency with speeds up to 1 Tbps.”
Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel are rolling out 5G in several locations, but Indian consumers have yet to experience its benefits. 5G handsets are scarce and expensive, which hinders consumer adoption. 5G may take years to spread. India can influence global telecoms if it leads 6G. India has the fastest-growing mobile phone market. Yet, it has adopted global industry standards in other areas. 6G could help India lead global standard-setting.
Vision document-compliant 6G research and development test bed. Academic institutions, industries, start-ups, MSMEs, and others can test and verify innovative information and communication technology on this test bed.
India could set the global trend for 6G technology development due to its enormous pool of qualified workers and academics.
Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Bharti Airtel, Randeep Sekhon said, “When we started discussing how can India contribute to 5G standards? Unfortunately, we were late. 5G was already a commercial service in some countries. But I think this is absolutely the right time, where you can start contributing and start shaping the 6G agenda to be in India. Otherwise, we are just adopting a global technology.”
It was also stated by the Minister of State (MoS) for Communications, Devusinh Chauhan, that India will be able to develop a completely homegrown 6G stack by the end of this decade (2030-end).
The 2030 roadmap, as envisioned in the document, aims to provide 100 Mbps to every citizen (large coverage of 5G and beginning of 6G); 500 Gbps of bandwidth to every gramme panchayat; connecting 90% of households with high-speed broadband; 50 million public Wi-Fi hotspots; 25 billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices smart enterprises & factories; and the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in delivery services, logistics, disaster management, amongst other applications.
How India’s 6G Technology Will Impact Africa
A lot of cities in Africa do not have access to 5G technology. They predominantly operate in 4G, and here comes the 6G technology.
6G will bring several benefits to public safety and the protection of important assets, such as the detection of threats, the monitoring of health, the recognition of features and faces, decision-making in law enforcement, assessments of air quality, and gas and toxin sensing.
This soul-draining experience of post-COVID can be improved thanks to 6G’s low latency and fast throughput rates. This is despite the fact that 6G has various other perks. Unfortunately, while the rest of the world is in the process of rolling out 5G, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) is still engaged in a legal battle with MTN, Telkom, and e.tv over their contentious Tier-based auctioning structure for 3.5 GHz spectrum, which is required for 5G.
Because the transition from analogue to digital broadcasting in South Africa and other African countries was unsuccessful, some of the frequency bands are also being used by television broadcasters. As a result, 5G connectivity is now only partially available in a select number of the largest cities. In spite of the fact that the majority of other nations have been able to use LTE-800 for at least five years, and several of them have already transitioned to 5G, Africa is still significantly behind due to a poorly managed digital migration.
The commercial availability of 6G is not projected until around the year 2030. The use of the ultimate frequencies in which 6G will function is still in the infant stage of its development as an industry.
There isn’t any guarantee that Africa will be ready for 6G when it is available by 2030. However, the few mega cities in places like South Africa, Nigeria, Sub-Saharan Africa and Northern Africa who are already experimenting with the 5G technology may be ready for 6G.