India requires 5G network sooner than expected, says Ericsson

humongous amount of data flowing in Indian telecom market shows that 5G network in country is required soon, a senior official of Swedish telecom gear maker Ericsson said Wednesday.

"5G might be t so much discussed in India but to be honest with you, amount of data that goes through those network, from mobile broadband perspective, 5G is going to needed soon in India just to compliment sheer amount of data that goes through networks," Ericsson Executive Vice President Fredrik Jejdling told PTI. 

He said that data consumption on mobile networks per user is among highest in world.

India is among top three markets for Ericsson. 

Indian telecom operators have said that y have ir networks ready to offer 5G services and will start it once spectrum is allocated to m.

Telecom operators have, however, said that spectrum price recommended by sector regulator is too high to suit ir business case. 

Jejdling said that telecom industry is at a st where market share is sort of set and industry has really accelerated with pace of 5G compared to what was being thought couple of years back.

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"Today, we are quite well positioned with regards to 5G. We have some 13 contracts (globally) for 5G w y are increasing by day and we are proud of progress that we have made so far," he said. 

He said that India market has surprised company with techlogy transition and growth in data consumption. 

"I remember we had anunced 3G in India in 2010 and in my view 3G had a really short period in India and 4G came in quite quickly afterwards. pickup of 4G and mobile data in India has been thing less than extraordinary. In a market which was largely served by fixed line access to transition to a market with one of highest amounts of data traffic per user," Jejdling said. 

He said that company has been supplying in India 5G ready equipment since 2015 and conducted used case trial in India with Jio and Bharti Airtel.