Although Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched 5G service in India on October 1, the service is yet to be rolled out in the North East.
North East states including Meghalaya have a number of challenges which will have to be overcome in order to usher in the 5G services.
According to experts, connectivity in the North East states is a challenge due to geographical location and hilly terrain. Reliable power supply to the telecom installations is also another challenge in the region.
Meghalaya together with Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura has 9799 mobile phone towers while the number of base transceiver stations is 32,312. Of these 7760 are 2G, 3238 are 3G and 21314 are 4G.
Assam alone has 14,443 mobile phone towers and 50314 base transceiver stations of which 10,985 are 2G, 5535 are 3G and 33,794 are 4G.
However, the wireless tele-density in Meghalaya is 71.93 per cent and internet tele-density is 52.78 per cent.
Experts said that fiberisation of sites and installation of an adequate number of towers are the two primary requirements for successful deployment of 5G in Meghalaya and the entire North East region.
Optical fibre has limitless capacity and is the ideal choice for backhaul links. However, connecting every site with fibre is challenging in terms of cost, time and logistical challenges (Right of Way challenges).
TRAI is putting all out efforts to expedite the deployment of 5G mobile services across all parts of India in collaboration with all regulators and other stakeholders so that benefits of this transformational technology reach to every nook and corner of the country at the same time.
5G mobile services will provide superior experiences to telecom and broadcasting consumers by delivering various services like e-healthcare, e-education, e-tourism, etc, and bring transformational changes to traditional sectors like agriculture, food processing, manufacturing, etc.
Recently, Union Minister for Law and Justice in India, Kiren Rijiju had said that all inhabited villages in the North East would be equipped with 4G mobile networks by the end of December 2023.
