on one hand, realme has declared that all realme smartphones launched about 20000 will be 5g smartphones and similarly jio ceo mukesh ambani said that they’ll start deploying 5g in the second half of 2021 but on the other hand this is a facebook comment from manukumarjan global vp xiaomi on a facebook post saying 5g is still two to three years away in india so why pay for it when it is not available.

Buy 5G Phone In India?

so now the question is what really should you even consider buying a 5g phone right now, well the short answer is NO, Because in India 5g is so messed up and unnecessarily hyped to know about that read the full blog.

what really 5g is ?

5g is the 5th generation of cellular networks similar to 2g 3g and 4g.It is a new global wireless standard after 1G, 2G, 3G, and 4G networks. 5g works on electromagnetic waves they are invisible. The internet and calling works because of these invisible waves, now these 5g frequencies are divided into two parts ‘sub 6’ and ‘millimeter wave’ .

so what’s the difference between  sub 6 and millimeter wave?

let’s take an example to understand it better imagine there are two pipes the first pipe is thin and long which can carry water for a long distance the only problem is the volume of the water is slow, so it will take some time to fill the tank and on the other side you have a thick and short pipe it cannot be carried to a huge distance but the volume of water is insane you can just fill your tank in just five minutes.

now the thicker pipe is “millimeter wave” which gives you crazy 5g speeds that you had seen in some internet videos but for that you have to stand beside a 5g pole on the other hand the thinner pipe is “sub 6” it won’t give you crazy speeds but will work far away from the 5g antenna pole.

Big statement !!

Now i’m gonna drop a big statement, for the most 90% cases or  even for the next five to six years you’ll be using sub 6 only the thin pipe which gives you only slightly faster speeds than 4g.

To explain that better let’s talk about the 5g bands in India. you might have heard about people talking that oneplus supports only one 5g band while moto g supports six 5g bands. so why this is happening?

If a company has to operate in a particular frequency, it has to buy them from the indian government. now the government of india has not yet sold any 5g bands.

There are 29 bands which will be auctioned by the government of india in late 2021 or early 2022 and the majority of them are in sub 6. remember the thin pipe only three are in millimeter wave 5g. even the recent airtel 5g test that you saw in hyderabad was in 1800 megahertz this is again sub 6. To make it even better no phone in india yet supports millimeter wave 5g.

so any phone that you see selling in india as of now won’t give you that crazy 1000 mbps download speed that you saw in mkbhd video

conclusion!!

so coming to the big question should you buy a 5g phone in india well 5g shouldn’t be the main reason to buy a phone. It will take 1 to 2 years to get workable 5g and even four to five  years to get a stable 5g connection in india.

Hence if you buy a phone now you would have changed at least two phones by the time 5g completely comes in india.