The Daily Brief India's 5G ambitions: fast rollout, slow revolution?
Dec 19, 2025
Dive into India's fast-paced yet complicated 5G rollout, where rapid coverage meets challenges in true capability. Explore the differences between non-standalone and standalone architectures and the gap in necessary infrastructure. Consider the lack of a transformative consumer app as a hurdle to monetization. Additionally, hear about coal's evolving role in the economy, facing declining margins and shifting demands. Finally, catch snippets on telecom investments and industry updates, painting a holistic picture of current trends.
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5G's Technical Trade-Offs
- 5G offers higher frequencies, more data capacity and lower latency than 4G, but signals travel shorter distances and poorly penetrate buildings.
- This forces operators to deploy far denser cell sites and rely on fiber backhaul to avoid bottlenecks.
NSA vs SA Shapes India's 5G Capabilities
- India largely used non-standalone (NSA) 5G where radios are 5G but the control plane remains 4G, limiting new 5G features.
- Jio alone pursued standalone (SA) 5G and bought 700 MHz spectrum that better supports full 5G capabilities.
Infrastructure Gaps Hold Back 5G
- India's rollout prioritized wide geographic coverage over the dense cell deployments 5G needs, and only ~46% of towers have fiber backhaul.
- Edge computing in India is nascent, so the full low-latency ecosystem for transformative 5G apps is incomplete.