Team Blitz India
NEW DELHI: The Rollout of 5G network in India has been the fastest in the world but revenue has not picked up as apps that are generating 80 per cent of the traffic are not paying for the network, a top official of the telecom industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said.
(COAI) Director General SP Kochhar said telecom players do not want to burden consumers but someone has to bear the cost of investment being made in the network. “The 5G rollout has been very good. It has set world records with the fastest 5G rollout. But having said that, I’m a little constrained to say that the revenues for the telecom industry have not picked up,” Kochhar said.
He said a huge amount of capital expenditure is being invested to roll out these networks.
“The private players who are rolling this out definitely expect the return on that. That unfortunately is not happening on the scale as which it should. 5G rollout has brought in 4-5 large entities who are consuming 80 per cent of telecom networks bandwidth but not paying revenue,” Kochhar said.