Indian biz leaders batting for wireless networking tech, 5G seen critical to success: Survey

It revealed that about 71 percent of Indian executives, the highest among the countries surveyed, believe their organizations will invest in more wireless networking due to the pandemic.

Business leaders in India are batting for wireless networking technologies, and executives here consider improvement in workplace communication, remote monitoring of machines, and enhanced customer experience as the most important 5G use cases for their businesses, the survey said.

''The ongoing pandemic has urged Indian enterprises to increase investments in next-generation wireless technologies,'' it said.

Deloitte's 'Global Advanced Wireless Survey – India edition' observed that next-generation wireless technologies, such as 5G and Wi-Fi 6, would improve service levels such as security, scalability, reliability, and resilience, in turn leading to business success.

The survey underscored that India ranks second only to Japan among the nations surveyed in terms of the investment planned on wireless networking. The increased investment is going towards customer engagement through digital platforms (57 percent), improved bandwidth requirements for remote workers (61 percent), and enhanced remote monitoring of machines (50 percent).

''Indian leaders believe that next-gen wireless technologies, such as 5G and Wi-Fi 6, will be critical to business success over the next three years,'' it explained.

The survey stressed that data speed has emerged as the top priority area (80 percent) for the Indian enterprises surveyed for performance efficiencies, substantially outperforming the global average (67 percent).

''Adopting next-generation wireless technologies, such as 5G and Wi-Fi 6, are essential parts of the network that links machines and people. Innovative solutions, such as these are the reason why leaders across industries see advanced wireless networks essential for their transformation strategies," Sagar Darbari, Partner, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP said.

Drawing a comparison with other nations, the survey noted that two-thirds of the organizations in India believe that existing networking infrastructure is preventing them from innovation – highest amongst global peers. India, along with the UK and Brazil, is expected to be ''most optimistic'' in using next-generation technologies to implement emerging technology.

Businesses in India rank second among global peers in terms of willingness to spend on wireless networking technology to meet the performance gap.

Also, after Japan and the UK, India is ''least inclined'' towards private 5G and most likely to go for a combination of both public and private 5G slices, the survey added.

''More than 8 in 10 networking executives are willing to explore new providers across the advanced connectivity ecosystem – those in India and the UK are most inclined to do so,'' the survey disclosed.