How many times do you have to scream hello while connecting with a driver after booking a cab? How often do you leave a room and go to the balcony to complete a call on your expensive smartphone? How frequently does your Zoom call freeze as the broadband data connection snaps? And how often do you depend on the good old landline phone when all else disappoints? The likely answer to all these questions would be umpteen times! Welcome to telephony in the time of 5G.
Call drops and weak signals, however, are not a phenomenon limited to rural India or to remote corners of the country. They are a problem faced in big cities, plush corporate offices, and power corridors. Will 5G give us a better deal so that we can talk on the phone the way we should be able to or is it only about downloading quality videos at the speed of light? The answers right now are sketchy and much will depend on how the newly acquired frequency bands, including those for 5G, are used by telcos.
If broken signals and call drops seem jarring when India is getting ready for extraordinary consumer experience in data transmission through 5G, consider this. In quite a coincidence, while the 5G spectrum auction was on, the Union Cabinet approved a mega revival package for state-owned telco Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), which has been losing market share and piling up losses over the years. The two taken together—5G auction and BSNL revival package—present a confusing picture to any industry watcher. But on a closer look, the two can co-exist, as do India and Bharat. While 5G should enable the telecom industry to put India on the global map in multiple spheres, ranging from healthcare to education and consumer business, BSNL is still a critical link for a sizeable chunk of rural India despite the private sector making definite inroads into the hinterland.
The numbers sourced from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) explain the need to have BSNL around, with or without a revival package from the government. The data also shows the relevance of next-generation services, like 5G, in India.
BSNL’s wireline or fixed phone service accounts for 23.72 per cent of the country’s total rural market share in the category as of December 2021. Reliance Jio’s rural market share in wireline is at 1.24 per cent, while Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and MTNL have zero to negligible rural presence in fixed phones. All-India numbers show BSNL is the leading operator in wireline with 7.59 million subscribers as of December 2021, followed by Bharti Airtel with 5.58 million.
In wireless or mobile services, the pecking order changes. But BSNL, with 114 million mobile subscribers, sits on 7.06 per cent of India’s rural wireless market share as of December 2021. In its own empire, 32 per cent of BSNL’s mobile subscriber base is from rural India. In wireless, Jio with 416 million customers, is on top holding 35 per cent of the rural mobile market share. Bharti’s wireless rural market share is next at 33 per cent followed by Vodafone Idea at 26 per cent, according to Trai’s annual numbers.
Even as Vodafone Idea is often identified primarily as an urban brand, its customer mix reveals that more than 50 per cent of its wireless users are in rural India. For Bharti, the rural subscriber base is at 48 per cent and Jio’s is 43 per cent.
An analysis of the 22 telecom circles in the country shows that half of them have a rural subscriber base in excess of 30 per cent. Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh are among these circles.
According to the latest quarterly data released last week by Trai, India’s rural teledensity is at 58.07 per cent as of March 31, 2022. Teledensity is the number of telephone connections for every 100 individuals living within the area. The urban teledensity is much higher at 134.94 per cent. The overall teledensity is pegged at 84.88 per cent. In wireless, while the total teledensity is at 83.07 per cent, the rural wireless figure is 57.85 per cent and urban at 130.17 per cent. In wireline, the total teledensity is just 1.81 per cent, rural at 0.22 per cent and urban 4.77 per cent.
A look at circle-wise teledensity numbers in the annual figures captured till December 2021 reveal another side of rural India. That is, some 15 circles have rural teledensity of more than 50 per cent. Kerala leads with rural teledensity of 211.4 per cent, followed by Himachal Pradesh at 104.48 per cent, Andhra Pradesh at 78.56 per cent, Gujarat at 72.9 per cent, Punjab at 72.66 per cent and so on.
Even as these figures suggest rural India holds the power in telecom, 5G is a tool whose time has come to empower citizens with ultra-high speed data in both India and Bharat.