Even as the 5G logo gets finalised, India still struggles with 3G and 4G

Even as India is struggling with 4G, the world is moving towards the next big thing – 5G.

The 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) cellular standards group, a collaboration between groups of telecommunications associations also known as the Organisational Partners, according to an NDTV report, has officially adopted the name “5G”. In fact, even the new logo, along with the name has been approved, and will become a wireless standard. 

The logo, according to the Organisational Partners, has been created keeping in mind the need to have a familiar design aspect. The logo, much like the previous ones, makes the use of plain black text and textured waves.

According to 3GPP, Phase 1 of the 5G roll-out is scheduled to be completed by September, 2018, to address a more urgent subset of the commercial needs. Phase 2 is set to be completed by March, 2020. 

The definition of 5G is yet to be given by 3GPP, however, it's speculated that the focus of 5G will shift from higher speeds to larger bandwidth.

"The use of the 5G logo on 3GPP specification cover sheets is intended to help the industry to identify at which point in time 5G features will appear," said the 3GPP in the release.

But even as the future of internet becomes a lot clearer, India’s struggles with existing technology are problematic to say the least. While companies like Airtel and Reliance Jio have tried to make 4G a more available choice of spectrum with their enticing offers and schemes, the sad reality is that offers alone cannot help if the state of infrastructure is shoddy at best.

Reliance Jio can boast a huge number of subscribers, but with more people joining, the speed of the service has taken a hit. For a company that promised the fastest 4G service in the country, it proved to be one of the worst, according to TRAI data. To top it all, its coverage is still somewhat patchy. 

Criticism of Jio aside, we are a nation still struggling with 3G. This is a fact that is clearly demonstrated by the number of Facebook Lite users in India. Facebook Lite is a stripped down version of Facebook, which was launched in India back in 2015, targeted towards people who face poor internet connectivity and low speeds. In March 2016, Facebook Lite hit 100 million users, and according to a report, just shy of a year later, this month, the number has doubled to 200 million.

Must we always be Internet Explorer next to Chrome?

Also read - iPhone users, don't even think about Jio