Relevance: GS-3: Infrastructure; Awareness in the fields of IT.

Key Phrases: 5G technology, mobile communication, Long Term Evolution, Frequency spectrum band, High speed Internet, Coverage area, Spectrum auctions, Central government, Airwaves, Competition, Enterprise market.

Why in News?

• India's largest ever auction of spectrum is underway i.e. bidding for 5G spectrum auctions

What is 5G technology?

• 5G stands for 5th Generation mobile communication technology.
• It is next generation of mobile broadband that will eventually replace, or at least augment, 4G LTE connection.
• It is the next-generation cellular technology that will provide
  • Faster and more reliable communication.
  • Communication with ultra-low latency.
• It is the latest upgrade to the LTE (Long Term Evolution) mobile broadband network.

Frequency spectrum band in 5G:

5G mainly works in 3 bands, namely :

• Low band spectrum:
  • Low band spectrum has large area of coverage but with low speed of Internet and data exchange.
  • The maximum speed is limited to 100 Mbps (Megabits per second).
  • This means that while telcos can use and install it for commercial cell phone users who may not have specific demands for very high speed Internet, the low band spectrum may not be optimal for specialised needs of the industry.
• Mid band spectrum:
  • The mid-band spectrum, on the other hand, offers higher speeds compared to the low band but has limitations in terms of coverage area and penetration of signals.
• High band spectrum:
  • The high- offers the highest speed of all the three bands, but has extremely limited coverage and signal penetration strength.
  • Internet speeds in the high-band spectrum of 5G have been tested to be as high as 20 Gbps (Giga bits per second), while, in most cases, the maximum internet data speed in 4G has been recorded at 1 Gbps.

Challenges with 5G technology adoption:

• Retaining reserve price of the spectrum:
  • Telcos have requested a 90% reduction in the reserve price but the TRAI has recommended it to be around 30-40%.
• High reserve price for the 700 MHz band
• Privacy Concerns:
  • 5G will lead to security and privacy concerns.
  • As autonomous vehicles, health or industrial processes become more reliant on wireless connectivity, they will also become more exposed to cyber-threats.
  • Risks such as remote sabotage of medical devices or automotive cyber-attacks could turn into a reality.
• Interference issues:
  • The Ka-band frequencies being used in 5G are also being used by remote sensing satellites.
  • There will be thousands of 5G cell towers radiating these frequencies and this would lead to significant interference.
  • This interference would cause poor quality weather prediction capability using satellite data.
• Health Challenges
  • 5G radiations cause adverse health effects due to heat generation because of millimetre waves and high-powered antennas.
  • Health concerns related to radiation from cell phone towers and cell phones are not new.
  • Electromagnetic hyper- sensitivity causes effects such as headaches and neurasthenia and it has been claimed from 4G and Wi-Fi.
  • Some research on high-powered Ka-band has warned of health impacts such as brain cancer and infertility.

Utility of 5G technology

• 5G technology offers exponentially faster download and upload speeds.
• Latency, or the time it takes devices to communicate with wireless networks, will also drastically decrease.
• Promising a wide range of use cases, it can be utilised for setting up both public and private captive networks.
• Public networks can be used in the consumer telecom market, and thus, airwaves for public network usage are being auctioned to telcos by the government.
• Private captive networks can only be used for private use within an organisation or enterprise, offering the enterprise direct control over data and security.
• It finds its application in industrial needs such as robotics and factory automation, among others.
• Private captive networks can be utilised by telcos to make enterprise-level offerings by giving the network on lease.
• It can also be utilised by non-telcos tech companies, such as big-tech firms, for their private communications.
• While the utilisation of 5G airwaves through public networks will result in consumers experiencing faster internet, private captive networks can further foster growth.

What is Spectrum?

• Spectrum is a range of radio waves used for communication purposes. It would include FM and AM radio broadcasts too and Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.
• Devices such as cellphones and wireline telephones require signals to connect from one end to another. These signals are carried on airwaves, which must be sent at designated frequencies to avoid any kind of interference.
• These airwaves are called spectrum, which is subdivided into bands which have varying frequencies.
• Frequency is the number of repetitions of the wave that one can see in a period.
• This means if a wave repeats slowly, it is low frequency and if it repeats more times in a period, it would be referred to as high frequency.

What are spectrum auctions?

• The Union government owns all the publicly available assets within the geographical boundaries of the country, which also include airwaves.
• With the expansion in the number of cell phones and internet users, the need to provide more space for the signals arises from time to time.
• To sell these assets to companies willing to set up the required infrastructure to transport these waves from one end to another, the central government through the DoT auctions these airwaves from time to time.
• All these airwaves are sold for a certain period of time, after which their validity lapses, which is generally set at 20 years.
• The first spectrum auction in India was conducted for 900MHz band, in 1994. Just after this MTNL and BSNL entered into the picture, and there were auctions in 1997, 2000, and 2001 (the last being for 1800MHz).
• The last spectrum auctions were held in 2016, when the government offered 2,354.55 MHz at a reserve price of Rs 5.60 lakh crore.
• The government managed to sell only 965 MHz – or about 40 per cent of the spectrum that was put up for sale – and the total value of bids received was just Rs 65,789 crore.

Conclusion:

• From super-ultra-fast broadband, to smart and autonomous cars, to enormous networks of Internet of Things (IoT), 5G could be the catalyst that brings about a much smarter and more connected planet.
• There is no doubt that the fifth-generation wireless technology will bring massive improvements in consumer broadband services and industrial applications with the potential to drastically alter societies through its wider impact.
• It is important to ensure that the industry is well-positioned to put the infrastructure in place to bring the benefits of this new technology to consumers.

Source:  Financial Express

Mains Question:

Q 5G technology may prove to be a double-edged sword. Discuss. (250 words).