25% of India’s population can access 5G services: Report

One-fourth of India’s population now has access to 5G services which are now available in 189 cities in the country, claims a new report by market research firm TechARC, published on Thursday. 

The report shows that Gujarat has the highest 5G coverage with services available in 34 cities, followed by Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh where 5G services are available in 19 and 16 cities, respectively. Delhi and Chandigarh are the only states where the entire population has access to 5G, while Meghalaya has the lowest coverage with only 5% of the population that has access to it. 

TechARC’s findings are based on the number of cities where 5G is available and the population of these cities. It doesn't take into account the number of base stations or the areas within the city where services are available. 

Reliance Jio has rolled out its 5G standalone (SA) network in 184 cities, while Bharti Airtel has covered 52 cities with its non-standalone (NSA) 5G networks, the report claims. In the NSA version of 5G, the RAN (radio access network) is upgraded to 5G, while the core network remains on 4G, while in SA 5G both RAN and core are upgraded, resulting in higher throughput and lower latency. 

Last November, several initial 5G subscribers in India reported poor coverage, inconsistent 5G speeds, lack of improvement in latency, and higher data consumption. Experts back then attributed it to a lack of adequate base stations for 5G services. 

TechARC’s report further claims that 41% of smartphone users in India can become 5G users if they decide to upgrade to 5G services. According to International Data Corporation (IDC) data, India has over 600 million smartphone users. India is estimated to have shipped 80 million 5G smartphones between the first quarter of 2020 and the fourth quarter of 2022.

Jio and Airtel are the only telcos that have started offering 5G services to consumers, even though VI acquired a significant amount of 5G spectrum at last year’s 5G auctions. According to TechARC, 94.6% of India’s population can be served by Jio, while Airtel can serve 44.8% of it.