5G’s Possible Benefits to India’s Growing IT Industry

With an expected growth of 7.7% in 2020, India’s IT industry is more than double the worldwide 3% standard of economic expansion. Aiding in this development are significant global advances to both national and international IT infrastructure, with the accessibility of faster internet playing a key role. While still in the early stages, the arrival of 5G could mark significant additional growth potential in many of India’s technologically connected sectors.

Business Growth

Expanding its contribution of 1.2% of GDP in 1998 to 7.7% in 2017, IT is one of India’s most promising markets in the internet age. Employing around 4.36 million people, IT is often held up as an example of India’s technological evolution. In terms of 5G integration, the primary advantage will likely be found through the use or creation of applications with high data requirements.

Source: Pexels

One of the more expected uses is as a backup system for IT centres and databases. Call centres are a prime candidate in this regard, where considerable bandwidth is used by systems that rely on online voice chat. In the case of an unexpectedly cut wired connection, only 5G would have the potential to measure up to the data demands these businesses require.

Similar benefits could be seen through database backups or cloud storage management. For the first time in history, mobile data connections can manage these high data demands in real-time, well beyond prior 4G limitations. Theoretically, even a small local blackout could be overcome through a combination of backup generators and 5G, again an unprecedented advance.

On the development side of the equation, the benefits of 5G could be much more international. In the coming years, the demand for 5G systems will continue to grow as the technology proliferates, leaving India in a prime position to take advantage. Businesses in places like Bengaluru are famous for their IT communities, which could help not just in programming new technologies, but also in testing them in busy urban environments.

Source: Pexels

Finally, 5G could prove an industry changer for distant workers. A component of business heavily influenced by bandwidth, 5G could give IT workers the ability to operate from a far broader base. This could prove advantageous not just in worker satisfaction, and thus performance, but could also generate trickle-down effects such as reduced travel pollution.

Predicting Maximum Engagement

Unlike earlier mobile generations, 5G’s ultimate level of success is unlikely to result in complete national coverage. Owing to weakness in the technology’s capacities for range and signal penetration, it is expected that 4G and its derivatives will remain the baseline into the foreseeable future. However, this reality will likely not act as too significant a mitigating factor for India’s continual IT growth.

Source: Pixabay

At peak transmission rates, 4G can operate up to 100Mbps. This translates to 12.5 megabytes per second or 750 megabytes per minute. While this cannot compare to 5G’s theoretical 1Gbps, the rate is still far more than enough for most professional and entertainment uses to operate without issue. As these will likely signal greater adoption and thus drive 5G engagement, general use cases are extremely important.

For example, consider high quality streaming on India’s JioCinema. Even at the 4K and 60fps, data usage on this service would usually reach no higher than 60 Mbps. Unless a network was particularly crowded, no forms of slowdown should occur. For lower requirement uses, even potential crowding issues will see better performance through a gradual improvement in 4G infrastructure. A common illustration of this could be found in online casinos. Low data requirements here would mean that no part of the experience, from collecting bonuses to playing on the websites themselves, will likely ever see slowdown with effectively managed 4G.

Source: Pixabay

Future Promise

Poised as India is for continued IT expansion, it is probable that 5G will play an important, though perhaps not indispensable, role going forward. Ultimately, the success resulting from this technology is dependent on how widely it is adopted both within India and abroad. Unknowable at this point, it is expected that, for the next few years at least, 4G will continue to play a more central role in India’s IT development. Further out from that, there is no telling how much 5G could contribute and evolve beyond its promising start.