Voice&Data Talkies #9: Tarun Chhabra, Head of Mobile Networks Business, Nokia India

Nokia has become synonymous with telecom innovation over the years, and Nokia India has a significant stake in India's 5G mission. The firm, which also owns Bell Labs, is always on the leading edge of the latest innovations in telecommunications and networking. Nokia has made a habit of contributing to the telecommunications standards, as it works on its 6G vision.

Leading the charge at Nokia India's Mobile Networks Business is Tarun Chhabra. An industry stalwart with almost three decades of experience at Nokia, Siemens, Samsung, Motorola, eVolution Networks, and OMC Power, Chhabra has rich experience in working close to the latest and greatest in telecom.

In the ninth edition of Voice&Data Talkies, Chhabra talked about India's 5G journey, how Nokia contributes to it, the expectations, the challenges, and the use cases for 5G, and beyond 5G.

Nokia has contributed a lot towards India’s journey to the 5G rollout. What kind of experience has it been for you?

The experience in terms of contributing towards India’s journey to 5G has been quite satisfying even though it's mainly in the form of trials so far. As the largest carrier network supplier in India, Nokia is closing working with all the CSPs in conducting 5G trials and helping them prepare for 5G. We have made several public announcements on the 5G trials conducted thus far covering 3.5 GHz, 700 MHz, rural connectivity, network slicing, E-band backhaul, and several other consumer use cases including remote education, cloud gaming, intelligence surveillance, and many more.

With the trials now extended till May 2022, we will continue working with our CSP partners in further developing and validating India-specific 5G use cases and network architectures.

To further add, we are among the major investors and producers of the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme under the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ initiative by the Government of India. Nokia was the first to manufacture the 5G New Radio in India at its Chennai factory and is now producing the cutting-edge Nokia AirScale massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (mMIMO) solution. The equipment is already being exported to many countries in advanced stages of 5G deployment and the factory can very well cater to our domestic market as well.

And not just that, our R&D center in Bangalore is heavily engaged in 5G research work, use cases, and applications development, partnering with academia and collaborating with industry partners for ecosystem development.

India has targeted a 5G rollout in August this year. Do you think that is a reasonable deadline?

5G has already evolved into a mature global technology within a short span of time – the first 5G network was launched in 2019 and today 187 operators in 72 countries/territories had launched 5G mobile services as per GSA December 2021 report. Having 74 live commercial 5G networks and 214 commercial deals under our belt and a strong global presence across all the advanced 5G markets – be it the US, Japan, Korea, China to name a few, Nokia is fully geared up for 5G roll out in India once the spectrum allocation happens.

Last year in June 2021, we launched our next-generation AirScale 5G portfolio powered by ReefShark technology. With complex multi-frequency and multi-RAT site solutions being deployed by the CSPs as the networks evolved over the years, the sites also grew in size alongside. Our new lightweight and compact AirScale radio and massive MIMO antenna solutions, with wider spectrum support, and high capacity baseband will be an ideal fit for the Indian market for a smooth, fast and easy 5G deployment while making the sites leaner and cutting the overall TCO as networks evolve to 5G.

We are also offering 100 percent digital deployment capabilities to the CSPs for a faster, more sustainable, and higher quality network deployment process. We have also showcased many of the functionalities in the ongoing 5G trials for Indian CSPs – be it digital site walk, digital site acceptance, zero-touch commissioning, etc., among others

Our Global Delivery Centres in Chennai and Noida are already handling 5G network operations for CSPs in several countries - all that experience and skillset can be leveraged for the Indian market to help the operators scale for the 5G launch.

Further, we have received the trusted source approval from the National Cyber Security Coordinator (NCSC) that qualifies us as a trusted supplier of telecom equipment for 5G deployments in India.

What kind of expectations does Nokia have with 5G in India? Do you think it will bring significant changes in the lives of the people of India?

India has been witnessing an upward trend in data consumption with Indian consumers spending a total of 4 hrs and 48 minutes on their smartphone per day – among the highest in the world. We’ve also seen the average monthly data usage per user grow almost 17 times over the last five years (source: Nokia Mbit report Feb 2021).

This is further set to change once 5G is introduced in India. 5G is more than just a new generation of technology - it brings a paradigm shift in the role of mobile technologies beyond connectivity. Along with related technologies like edge computing, augmented intelligence/ machine learning, 5G will enable CSPs to reinvent and transform into digital service providers (DSPs) and be able to address new segments like automotive, energy, logistics, manufacturing, public transport to name a few. Not just that, it will offer the physical industries the capability to bridge the productivity gap between them and the digital industries, thereby enhancing the productivity of the entire economy.

Furthermore, 5G will lay the foundation for a connected digital society while diminishing the digital divide in India– be it the enabling of new services in healthcare to expand remote medical facilities that can save lives or 5G driven remote education to help children in remote and rural areas by removing physical and language barriers or be it integrated traffic lights and smart parking solutions for safer and faster commuting. Agriculture will also benefit immensely from 5G with the deployment of a smart agriculture-as-a-service solution including soil probes, weather stations, etc. We will also see 5G-enabled integrated traffic lights and smart parking solutions which will help make daily commutes faster and safer.

5G will also help make our environment and society more sustainable. As per research by Nokia and Telefonica in Dec 2020, 5G networks are up to 90 percent more energy efficient per traffic unit than legacy 4G networks. The study combined actual on-site base station energy consumption readings in different traffic load scenarios, ranging from 0 percent to 100 percent, as well as remote monitoring of actual power consumption through the network management systems.

People in the industry have talked about 5G as a platform, talking about how the new network will bring in Industry 4.0. What do you think that entails?

Unlike the previous generation of technologies that focused primarily on the consumers. 5G technology is also designed for enterprises and businesses. The whole ecosystem of 5G and associated technologies including AI/ML, edge infrastructure/ cloud, private networks provide the critical tools necessary for all industries to digitalize and drive Industry 4.0. and be able to meet burgeoning digital demand in a world where consumer habits and enterprise needs are changing at a very fast pace. This will have two fundamental effects: parity will be achieved between the ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) investment and a GDP contribution of industries, and value creation will be catalyzed across industries and, ultimately, throughout the global economy.

Today, the ratio of ICT investment between digital and physical industries is 70:30—while the proportion of their respective GDP contributions is 30:70. Physical industries (including mining, construction, manufacturing, agriculture, etc) have been slower than digital industries (such as media, banking, insurance, etc) in adopting digitalization systems and platforms that drive efficiency and innovation. This is where the opportunity lies with 5G

Bell Labs Consulting estimates that future ICT investment enabled by 5G and associated technologies will be driven primarily by physical industries – This huge spending infusion will mean the historical 30:70 ratio of ICT spending between physical and digital industries will invert, becoming 65:35 in favor of physical industry spend. 5G will allow physical industries to bridge the efficiency and productivity gap between them and digital industries. The enterprises will benefit from 5G’s fast speeds, low latency, extreme reliability, and high capacity and we expect 5G and associated technologies to yield a 4x to 11x increase in the overall SPE metric (safety, productivity, and efficiency) of a typical medium to large factory relative to current technologies

For example, Nokia’s Conscious Factory in Oulu – A fully digitalized factory that incorporates all 5G+ technologies. All the systems are connected by a private 5G network – this site has seen a 30% year-over-year improvement in productivity; efficiency gains by 80%, and reduced staff floor time by 20% for safety.

Nokia’s private wireless solution is trusted by over 340+ enterprise clients worldwide in a range of vertical industries to unleash the digital transformation. We envision a range of industries transforming to Industry 4.0 and this is where Nokia can help enterprises in India with extremely reliable and secure wireless connectivity to undergo this digital transformation.

What are some of the challenges that 5G will face in the Indian telecom sector?

While we are on the way to introducing 5G in India in 2022 pending spectrum allocation, we do agree that there are certain challenges to be overcome and some issues to be addressed before we can realize the full potential of 5G.

To start with, spectrum pricing and harmonized spectrum allocation across bands and geographies (telecom circles), digital infrastructure build-up, backhaul capacity enhancement, and fiberization, creating awareness around 5G benefits, developing Digital skill set, creating a wider and mature ecosystem, RoW (Right of Way) implementation, Investment and return of investment are some of the issues that need a closer look.  Another topic that needs attention is the ecosystem and policy alignment for new India-relevant use cases when moving beyond the eMBB driven use cases.

The Government has taken several measures to improve the overall health of the telecom sector to improve the digital infrastructure with a strong push for fiberization. E band is being evaluated as a viable wireless backhaul option, offering fiber-like performance while the PLI scheme has been devised to help towards creating a robust ecosystem. A comprehensive ‘dig-once’ common duct policy is being framed to ensure the provisioning of fiber in buildings, roads, tunnels, etc., to speed up fiber laying at speed. Further, the Government is also evaluating the use of street furniture including electric poles to deploy 5G small cells to ease the rollout and overcome the RoW challenges

However, successful adoption of 5G will take the combined efforts of the government, CSPs, equipment vendors, enterprise, and ecosystem partners. Cooperation among the stakeholders will be key to making 5G a reality in India and realizing its full economic and social value.

Nokia had recently published a vision of what the 6G will look like. While it is hard to imagine how technology will evolve during the decade, what are your views on 6G?

While the 5G network deployment, in all likelihood, will continue in various parts of the world including countries like India where 5G services are yet to be launched, the focus of wireless research is increasingly shifting toward 6G as 5G deployments get underway. Keeping up with the tradition of a new generation of cellular tech once every ten years or so, there is an expectation that a 6G tech will be standardized with deployments starting before 2030.

To give some examples that can help to envision the technology evolution to 6G, first, touchscreen typing will become outdated. Gesturing and talking to devices we use to get things done will become the norm. Second, the devices we use will be fully context-aware, and the network will become increasingly sophisticated at predicting our needs,. Third, wearable devices, such as earbuds and devices embedded in our clothing, skin patches, and bio-implants will become common

Further, we can expect latency to fall to microseconds with 6G. Network reliability will get enhanced manifold through simultaneous transmission, multiple wireless hops, device-to-device connections, and AI/ML. In terms of speed, 6G networks will allow Tbps of speeds and we will be talking about connecting the “trillions” of objects, rather than the “billions” of mobile devices.

The connectivity in 6G will be about enabling the seamless integration of the three different worlds: the physical world, that is, things, the digital world, and the biological world, that is, us humans.

Another key feature of 6G networks will be the Sixth sense capability. In the 6G era, we will see applications that will not only connect humans with machines but also connect humans with the digital world. Such a secure and private connection can be used for preventive healthcare or even to create a 6G network with a sixth sense that intuitively understands our intentions, making our interactions with the physical world more effective and anticipating our needs, thereby improving our productivity.

There have been many use cases that have been talked about under 5G. What do you think are the most innovative ones?

CSPs are well aware of new service and revenue opportunities from 5G, which will be especially welcome in mature mobile markets where consumer mobile broadband revenue growth has slowed. What those service and revenue opportunities will look like is an open question and will vary from market to market.  5G in our view is a superstore of innovative use cases and it is very hard to pinpoint or choose any as the most innovative or unique.

The adoption of use cases will depend on the CSPs business strategy, consumer behavior, ecosystem, and business model. However, some of the popular use cases from the first 5G wave are fixed wireless access, Cloud gaming, Telemedicine, Immersive entertainment, video analytics and surveillance, AR-enhanced tourism among others.

Next, we have Private Wireless Networks, AR-enabled support & maintenance, Mentored surgery, Production line automation, AR-glasses infotainment, etc., that are likely to emerge as the popular use cases in the second 5G wave.  And then we will have Cloud robotics, an All-5G enterprise campus, Intelligent traffic systems, 5G V2X-enhanced assisted driving getting popular as the markets continue to evolve.

The promise of 5G is real. Capturing it will require CSPs to proceed incrementally — starting with use cases and services that extend naturally from their 4G businesses today and building future-ready partnerships as they go. It will also require a careful watch of global trends to identify best practices and, at the same time, alertness to regional markets and the needs of local customers. Finally, selling 5G solutions will demand a new approach from CSPs, focusing less on technology than on the business needs of consumers and enterprises their technology can meet. By becoming “problem solvers” for their customers.

While we have been talking about what is happening with 5G in the present, what does the future hold for 5G in India?

Globally 5G is rolling out faster than any previous generation of mobile networks – that’s nearly 3 x faster than 4G and is likely to follow a similar pattern in India. Market estimates and surveys point towards a healthy 5G uptake in India in line with other markets where 5G has been launched. As per estimates, 5G connections in India may reach near 330 million subs by 2026. The numbers may vary across different market reports but a strong appetite for 5G remains the bottom line.

As per a recent market report, 5G smartphones shipments in the country registered 555 percent year-on-year growth in 2021. Also, there were reports that indicated India as the fourth largest market for 5G smartphones in 2021, and that too when 5G is yet to be launched. 5G also continues to be among the top three desired features in a smartphone in the country.

5G will represent a huge leap for industry and society as it paves the way for a connected digital society. India stands to gain huge economic and social value from 5G with India-relevant use-cases.

Talking in terms of economic potential, 5G is predicted to create a cumulative economic impact of $1 trillion by 2035 in India as per TRAI. Furthermore, a KPMG report in 2019 estimated that India Inc has the potential to unlock $48.69 billion in four years through the deployment of 5G.