TelecomTalk recently conducted a small poll on its official Twitter handle (@TelecomTalk) to understand how many consumers want 5G services after it has finally launched in India. In the poll, which ran for just 24 hours, a total of 708 votes came in. Private telecom operators, including Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, have launched 5G services in India. Both the operators have started from select cities. While Airtel's 5G has been announced for eight cities, Jio has announced it for four cities.
There are millions of Indians who own a 5G-enabled smartphone today. The telcos are counting that as a positive sign before the rollout of 5G in different parts of India. But it is important to understand how many Indians even want 5G services in the first place.
TelecomTalk Poll on 5G Demand
Out of the total votes, 54.1% of votes went to 5G, and the remaining 45.9% of votes stayed with 4G. It is a positive sign for the telcos as the number of users wanting 5G would only increase from here as the device ecosystem and the use cases around the technology mature. While this is a fairly small survey to determine the larger mood of the market, it sort of gives a sneak peek into what India really wants.
More and more Indians will be upgrading to 5G phones in the coming years. As the use cases of 5G technology evolve for consumers, the demand for 5G services would increase. Right now, the telcos can comfortably scale their 5G network rollout and ensure that, in the meantime, consumers are getting good 4G services.
4G is not going anywhere right now. To make 5G a successful endeavour, telcos will have to justify the services with the use cases and the tariffs. For now, both Airtel and Jio aren't charging anything extra from the consumers for their 5G services.
