The topic of 5G has all that’s been talked about in the telecom industry for the last couple of months. So much so, that according to a Business Insider India report, 30 million 5G enable mobile devices were sold last year, and that was even before the 5G spectrum had been bought by telecom operators. Active service is another matter completely. 

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It’s not like Indians face a distinct shortage of high-speed internet. In fact, India has the cheapest 4G data in the world, 1 GB of it is Rs 7. And as it stands, over 99% of the country has 4G connectivity, according to the Business Insider India report. 

However, recently, telecos have increased the tariffs for 4G which has led to a decline in the subscriber count. 5G might be reliant on either normal people taking the hit to their wallets as 4G prices g up so that 5G can be provided with no extra cost, or, 5G prices are priced higher than 4G, which might hurt adoption. 

While 4G data is cheap, speed tests reveal that the average speed in the country hovers at a little over 14 MBps. The global average stands at 30 MBps, just a little over two times more than India’s Internet speeds. 

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For perspective, streaming services like Disney+ Hotstar and Amazon Prime Video recommend speeds between 2 and 6 Mbps. While 4G currently already comfortably breaches these requirements, 5G would be a significant jump from current speeds and while latency will definitely come down, how many people will it really affect?

An Ericsson report claims that by 2027, the total number of 5G users will number at a massive 500 million. Put that number up against the projected number of 4G users (700 million) which blows past the India’s actual telecom subscriber base, for a total of 1.2 billion users.