Barricades in Network Transformation from 4G to 5G in India

Background and objectives: The next biggest change that the world is waiting to witness in the technology and communication field is the 5th generation or 5G technology that is being to be functional worldwide by 2020. Though it will bring in many new changes in the world like it will be connecting millions of heterogeneous objects while providing high speed internet and using real time data for real time analysis like for coordination of road and car sensors. But before the world looks on to all these functionalities of 5g, there are a huge number of potential challenges in its path of implementation. The present study is aimed at finding and segregating these challenges faced by organizations in Indian Telecom Industry. The respondents used in the present study are the employees of the 3 biggest network providers in India working in the R&D and IT department of these companies. Quantitative survey among the employees (N=135) was conducted to satisfy the aim and objectives of the study. Research Findings: The study found 23 challenges from the researches done so far. Further the study segregated these 23 challenges into 4 broader categories of the challenges according to their similar nature using factor analysis. The 4 broad categories found are system level, network level, spectrum level and performance based challenges. The nomenclature of these categories has been in the study via extensive research on the secondary data and researches.