India among world's fastest-growing 5G networks: Economic Survey 2024

India is amongst the fastest-growing 5G networks in the world, and post-the launch of 5G services, India's international rank on mobile broadband speeds has jumped from 118 to 15 in March 2024, the Economic Survey 2023-24 said Monday. It added that telecom technology development requires significantly large and patient capital for R&D and commercialisation. And to address this, the government has decided that an allocation of 5% of annual collections from the Universal Services Obligation Fund (USOF) would be made available for funding R&D in the telecom sector, which is the gateway to fast-paced growth of digital services in India. The survey added that India's overall teledensity (number of telephones per 100 population) has increased from 75.2 % in March 2014 to 85.7 % in March 2024. The number of wireless telephone connections, in turn, stood at 116.5 crore as of end-March 2024."The Bharat 5G Portal propels India's 5G capabilities and fosters innovation, collaboration, and knowledge-sharing within the telecom sector, Survey said.

According to the Economic Survey 2023-24, India's total number of mobile towers stood at 8.02 lakh as of June 2024 while the number of Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) stood at 29.37 lakh while 5G BTSs were 4.5 lakh. "The government has also initiated a project for saturation of 4G mobile services with a total cost of Rs 26,316 crore in 24,680 uncovered villages in remote and difficult areas. 6,279 villages having only 2G/3G connectivity shall be upgraded to 4G."

Economic Survey data also showed that the deployment of government capex in telecommunications increased 8.5% on-year to ₹59,400 crore in FY24.


Services trade data collated by Economic Survey 2023-24 showed that overall exports from 'telecommunications, computer, and information services' increased around 7.41% to $163.6 billion in FY24 from $152.3 billion in FY23. Overall imports on this score, in turn, have risen a modest 5.5% to $20.9 billion during the same period.

The latest Economic Survey underlined that over the medium term, India is focusing on integrating its value chain with that of the West, particularly in sectors like renewable energy and advanced technology, including artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and next-generation telecommunications.

Further, it noted that the country's internet subscribers jumped from 25.1 crore in March 2014 to 95.4 crore in March 2024, of whom 91.4 crore are accessing the internet via wireless phones.