Medilytix Bureau : PM Narendra Modi on Saturday launched the first phase of 5G services in 13 cities across India in Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. The launch took place during the four-day inauguration of India’s biggest technology festival, India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2022.
Modi also inspected various stalls at the IMC 2022 exhibition. He tested ColCom’s new vehicle, which can be remotely controlled in mines and war fields.
“5G technology will provide seamless coverage, high data rates, low latency, and highly reliable communications. It will increase energy efficiency, spectrum efficiency, and network efficiency, “Modi tweeted. Before the launch, Modi also urged young people, the startup world, and people from the tech world to join this special programme.
PM Modi also inaugurated the sixth edition of the India Mobile Congress (IMC) with the theme of “New Digital Universe”. It will bring together leading thinkers, entrepreneurs, innovators, and government officials to discuss and showcase unique opportunities emerging from the rapid adoption and spread of digital technology.
In the first phase, prominent cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, and Hyderabad, etc. are likely to experience 5G services first. People will not be charged a premium for 5G services because the government will expand network rollout.
In July, the government of India auctioned 51,236 MHz of 5G airwaves allocated by the telecom department to telcos, and the government garnered a gross revenue of Rs 1,50,173 crore.
On the occasion, the three major telecom operators in the country demonstrated one use case each in front of the Prime Minister to show the potential of 5G technology in India.
Reliance Jio demonstrated that 5G facilitates education by bringing teachers closer to students, obliviating the physical distance between them. In the Airtel demo, a girl from Uttar Pradesh will witness a lively and immersive educational experience to learn about the solar system with the help of virtual reality and augmented reality. The Vodafone Idea test case demonstrated the safety of workers in an under-construction tunnel of the Delhi Metro through the creation of a digital twin of the tunnel on the dais. The digital twin will help give safety alerts to workers in real-time from a remote location.
The various use cases that will be demonstrated in front of PM in the exhibition include precision drone-based farming; High-Security Routers & AI based Cyber Threat Detection platforms; Automated Guided Vehicles; Ambupod-Smart Ambulance; Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality/Mix Reality in Education and Skill Development; Sewage Monitoring System; Smart-Agri Programme; Health diagnostics, among others.
The cumulative economic impact of 5G on India is expected to reach $450 billion by 2035.
An inter-ministerial committee on 5G use cases has been functioning since 2021 in coordination with 12 central ministries, enabling the setting up of 5G use-case labs.
“Today, PM Modi is launching 5G services in India. In the history of telecom, today would be recorded in golden letters. Telecom is the gateway, the foundation of Digital India. It is the way to bring digital services to every person,” said Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw at the event.