Andrew Bonwick
Vice President of Product Development at Relm Insurance
Madhav Sheth
CEO of Ai+ Smartphone
Stephen Rose
CEO Render Networks


4G networks are not going to go out of India anytime soon, even though the era of 5G is here. It will drive a substantial amount of data traffic in India for several years in the future.
“4G remains as a substantial broadband engine for mobile internet connectivity for many years to come,” said Amit Marwah, Head of Marketing & Corporate Affairs, Nokia India, during a Q&A session at the launch of Nokia’s Mobile Broadband Index (MBiT) report, 2022.
It is worth noting that Ericsson’s Mobility report released during November 2021 had highlighted that 4G is going to remain the dominant technology in India even in 2027. However, in a very natural manner, the total number of 4G subscriptions are also expected to reduce with the arrival of 5G. Regardless, the importance of 4G for mobile broadband won’t be ignored by the telcos.
4G Has Towards 4.5G and 4.9G
Marwah said that 4G has a path towards 4.5G and 4.9G in India, which will be able to deliver internet speeds close to that of 5G.
According to Marwah, 5G will play the role of complementing 4G. Most of the use cases developed so far point towards the direction that 5G would be more in demand by the enterprises and businesses of India rather than the normal consumers.
One big question for an average consumer before getting a 5G plan would be whether there’s any necessary application on his/her smartphone or laptop which would require such high-speed mobile Internet.