Lately we are seeing an international debate on the ownership of 5G by China based Tech companies and all nations cite the technology as a critical infrastructure. While living in the thick of it, we should also know the reason of the fight. What makes it so significant that all capable nations want to reap its benefits and see possible threats from it. To understand the reason, we should run a simulation where 5G exists. This article is a glimpse of that simulation.
What happens when I am in an environment which is 5G enabled?
Agriculture sector:
Starting with the basics, yield of farm requires irrigation, pest control and adequate monitoring of the crop’s health. As a farmer, previously I could not afford to install any sensor and equipment because generation and storage of such data for the collective farming period of 6 months will cost me extensively. Let’s assume that the total data generated from one farmer’s land is 300 MB.
However, with the advent of 5G, details of all the farms of that village/ settlement are entirely stored on a real time speed in cloud/ centralized infrastructure managed by Ministry of Agriculture. Now let’s imagine that there are 50 villagers under every Gram Panchayat (GP) doing the same. Please note, buying and installation of such sensors are always easy and cheap. We will address the pricy part at the end. In my hometown, we have 72 villages in and around the city. In the district, we have 262 such GPs. That accumulates a total of 13100 (~50 X 262) farmers. The Ministry of Agriculture can assess the data on a real time basis from the crop yield of all the farmers and can conclude multiple benefits:
Type of machinery most required by the farmer: With 5G the farmer can monitor maintenance, productivity and fuel requirements of deployed machineries and sensors. Similarly, a regulatory authority can monitor the application of hardware in the sector. This will provide the government with more relevant statistics to present and attract investments such as #Mahindra, #Bharatbenz and #John #Deer into the sector.
Predictive yield of the farmer’s crop and the health of the soil: 5G can help the farmer map real time irrigation patterns, the presence of nutrition in soil and gives a digital ownsership to his crop growth. Real time monitoring of agriculture yield can help a regulatory authority to reduce the contingencies such as the substantial cost incurred in #Food #Corporation of #India (FCI). Such monitoring can help agri industries such as #Parle and #Marico to further flourish in the sector. India is a major producer of packaged and processed food. The Ministry can monitor the health of the land, based on which unsuitable land can be used for further infrastructure development works. this will help in cost effective and duly justified acquisition of land for infrastructure purposes.
Regulatory overwatch of the monitored land, thereby maintaining digital record of the land and her farmer. This can reduce a substantial amount of civil cases originating from the farming community
Effective reduction of risks for the farmers based on which #MUDRA loans/ agri loans are to become more secure and predictable. The Reader shall note the MUDRA Loans have tended to be non-performing assets for the lender banks.
The Ministry can ensure due supply of water through his network of canals. The Ministry and the farming community also monitor the capacity of canals and reservoirs in the district in real time. Requirement of irrigation network can in return help assess and monitor the capacity of reservoirs, dams and barrages. Such measures will help reduce the conflict like the ones between #Karnataka and #Tamil #Nadu over #Godavari River.
All these data sets will be accessible to every party mirroring the outlook and purpose for contribution from each party.
Ok, if its good then what's stopping?
5G enables the network of these clusters of data and cross connected with similarly monitored systems of electricity consumption of these villages, the financial health of the community, health care services for the farmers, rationalizing the subsidies, weather, management of natural calamity and effectively optimizing the entire agriculture economy.
Apart from the sugar story we should take note of the constraints. Our existing networks (4G and below) can only handle one kind of device, that is the smartphone. Under implementation of 5G, we need to install 8 numbers of 5G cores, let’s call them Towers, to substitute any existing 1 telephone tower. Also, the connectivity is to increase 100X in comparison to each smartphone connected via networks. It is true that 5G technology seems to be cost intensive on the installation and operational front, it is imperative that the gestation period and the break even of this technology.
The Readiness of National Security Apparatus and Economy
To bring some clarity to the actions taken by the Government of India, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has already published her strategy paper on further course of action through a public/private partnered Steering Committee. The ministry, currently headed by Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, has banned engagement of PSU Telecom companies with the Chinese Tech companies. The Committee published her strategy paper on 23.08.2018 on making India 5G ready. The Committee has eminent entities such as the premier #IITs, #Jio, #Bharti #Airtel, #BSNL, #Railnet and concerned ministries. As envisioned in the Report, the Indian Telecom service providers have proposed 5G trials in urban and rural pockets under partnership with Telecom infrastructure companies such as #Ericsson, #Nokia, #Samsung and #Huawei. Given the constraint of Huawei, the announcements on involving Huawei are yet to be taken up. Recently, Jio announced her homegrown 5G solutions on the recently held grand AGM on 15th Jul'2020. India's foray into 5G is as riddled as in any other country. It is definitely a technology race in which there is no clear winner, but India has to be a runner up like other leading nations of Japan, South Korea, United Kingdom, Japan and United States of America.
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