By all accounts, India is a digital trailblazer. Buoyed by the falling cost and rising availability of smartphones – coupled with over half a billion internet subscribers – the nation has established itself as one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing bases of digital consumers and is digitising faster than many mature and emerging economies. That the world’s most populous country is using electronic voting machines speaks volumes about its journey.
The progress of this digitalisation, however, has been uneven. There is a notable digital divide mirroring existing socioeconomic inequalities, and the gap between rural and urban India remains stark. According to figures from the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), under one in four (24%) rural Indian households have access to the internet, compared to two thirds (66%) in cities. Further, a reported 56% of the population in both urban and rural areas regularly experience connection disruptions and speeds lower than promised or paid for – a problem for connected households everywhere.
These statistics threaten the government’s ambitious ‘Digital India Initiative’ goals, which aim to digitally empower the nation through infrastructural upgrades, increased digital literacy and the promotion of e-services. Providing physical last-mile connectivity is a huge challenge in such an expansive country – but one technology has risen to the challenge.
Enter mmWave FWA
The most promising solution that has emerged in bridging the digital divide is millimetre wave (mmWave) fixed wireless access (FWA) technology, which offers the capability to deliver high-bandwidth connectivity to underserved areas.
Momentum is now truly behind mmWave FWA, with a number of advancements in 2023. The technology – which offers faster data transfer rates, low latency, and higher bandwidth compared to previous wireless technology – is gaining popularity in India after Jio, the nation’s largest telecom carrier by subscriber count, announced the launch of its FWA service. Jio AirFiber, which now services eight of India’s largest cities including Delhi and Mumbai, bypasses last mile fibre to supercharge broadband reliability for consumers.
Since its rollout, mmWave FWA has delivered the low latency and high speeds needed for high-quality home connectivity in India, making it an ideal solution for a rapidly expanding urban population. Crucially, the technology presents a lower-cost option than the capital-intensive deployment of fibre infrastructure, while essentially offering the same exceptional connectivity result. This clear cost advantage made mmWave FWA the perfect solution for brownfield sites in an emerging economy such as India, enabling rapid and cost-effective expansion of high-speed broadband access to underserved areas that had long grappled with the digital divide.
The value of mmWave when targeting densely populated areas is such that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is now campaigning for more mmWave bands to be made available.
What can other markets learn from the Jio AirFiber rollout?
The innovative application of mmWave FWA by Jio lies in their decision to deploy it in urban locations. While the technology’s ability to bridge the digital divide in remote areas is well-recognised, Jio’s strategy of using it to augment existing broadband infrastructure in cities and their outskirts is a novel approach that a lot of other markets can learn from.
By leveraging mmWave FWA’s high bandwidth and low latency, Jio can provide a faster and more reliable alternative to traditional broadband services in densely populated areas where demand often outstrips supply. This not only improves the overall broadband experience for urban and suburban users but also helps alleviate network congestion issues that plague many cities.
What we have learnt is that what works for one market won’t work for another. While mmWave FWA presents immense potential in India, the same level of impact will likely be achieved slower in developed markets, such as the United States. The simple reason for this is ubiquity of fibre broadband infrastructure across major American cities.
Verizon, one of the country’s largest telecom providers, has invested billions in laying fibre optic cables to homes and businesses in densely populated metropolitan areas over the past decade. As such, with high-speed fibre already entrenched, Verizon’s mmWave FWA deployments have to date been complementary – filling remaining niche coverage gaps or augmenting capacity, rather than fully displacing legacy networks as Jio could across India’s urban and rural landscapes.
On the other side of the same coin, fibre is not possible in some countries – only more developed nations can realistically invest in widespread fibre deployments. For many emerging economies grappling with limited resources and infrastructural challenges, the high capital expenditure required for trenching fibre networks acts as a significant barrier. This is where Jio’s adoption of mmWave FWA could serve as a blueprint for other emerging, digitalisation-hungry nations. By circumventing the need for costly civil works through a wireless last-mile solution, these countries can rapidly extend high-speed broadband access to underserved populations.
Jio’s rollout of AirFiber is perhaps the best indication yet of how mmWave can bridge digital divides. While the application has demonstrated clear value, it has also unearthed new questions – namely on the global applicability of the technology. Nevertheless, for emerging economies with infrastructural constraints, Jio’s model offers a beacon of possibility, pinpointing how mmWave can key driver of equitable digital access, fostering socio-economic participation on a huge scale.
Author: Wim Van Thillo, CEO of Pharrowtech
There’s plenty of other editorial on our sister site, Electronic Specifier! Or you can always join in the conversation by commenting below or visiting our LinkedIn page.
