In her Budget Speech this year, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that in order to allow the rollout of 5G mobile services in 2022-23, the required spectrum auctions will be held in 2022.
Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister for Communications and Electronics & Information Technology, said that “the country has developed its own indigenous 4G core & radio network…[and] the 5G network is also in final stages of development”.
However, all these announcements are being made at a time when a new term —Metaverse — is becoming popular around the world and also in India. Here it is worth noting that according to industry experts, 5G and Metaverse both are interrelated.
Speaking to News18.com, Ambarish Ray, co-founder and CEO of Digital Dogs Content and Media, explained how these two are co-related and why 5G is important for the Metaverse.
Edited excerpts:
How can 5G help Metaverse?
I think 5G and Metaverse both need one another. There comes a time in technology scaling, where one track scales faster than the other. Distributed cloud architecture and digital infrastructure that is required for scaling can only commercially as well as adoption-wise make sense when there is a scaled Metaverse.
Similarly, the Metaverse can only scale when seamless recreation of reality is possible at scale and affordably.
Think of building multiplexes with hundreds of screens but the movies are released only at the rate of 2-3 a week. Or movies released at the rate of 100 per week but the screens are largely single-screen theatres.
The point is that this is the greatest synergy opportunity in technology, a sector that is not known for factoring synergy in its invention plans. Most technology gets built first and then seeks alliances and adoption. In this case, with the Metaverse and 5G (even early-stage 6G), the synergy is critical for statistically significant growth and scale.
Will 5G and Metaverse both change India’s digital future?
5G and other scaled technology are not just good, but key necessities for India. It may sound odd, but we need 5G more than some other so-called “developed” economies. See the advantages and key box features of 5G — from ultra-massive network capacity to very low latency and high peak data speeds.
All of this, for a country of 1.5 billion that is leapfrogging with a vengeance, is needed. We can’t be harbouring world domination ambitions with rusty weapons.
Metaverse, on the other hand, is a great opportunity for constructing realities and building relationships in those realities. India is a market that is culturally suited, in its DNA, for something like the Metaverse.
From alternate, virtual, augmented and mixed realities to avatar-isation, world-building and constructed virtual markets, India and Indians are familiar with the maya of it all. Nothing is what it seems and everything is unreal. That’s maya. Isn’t that also what the Metaverse is?
What are the challenges in terms of popularising the Metaverse?
Scale. That’s the main challenge. Whether it is India, other developing economies or even developed cultures. The adoption rate and engagement cycle have to be at scale. It is interesting to see whether one reality cannibalises the other or not. For now, scaling is the most important point to drive.
Coming as a dependency factor is, of course, infrastructure. Virtual, cloud, physical as well as communications networks.
Then there is the entire social endorsement aspect — important gatekeepers and social voices like educationists, thinkers, and psychologists even. The overall acceptance and NOC (No Objection Certificate) from these quarters is an absolute must in the long run.
What are the cybersecurity issues in the Metaverse?
We are having a hard time protecting our world, let alone the universe. The Metaverse is an alternate universe. It will eventually develop its own systems and entropies. We can, at best, protect our worlds inside the Metaverse.
See, the thing about the Metaverse is that it is not about some groups or even large communities protecting it. It is free and shape-shifting in that sense. Of course, there are basic principles of security protocols, network threat assessment, etc. But the larger issues of protection of data, protecting and safeguarding interests etc is not even clear yet to most of those in the Metaverse now. It is too premature.
How do you see the growth of Metaverse in India in the coming years?
Metaverse, both as a concept for figuring in the thoughts, words and actions of the marketing and C-suite execs as well as actionable strategies and deployment, will see an uptick in India. India is no longer as isolated as it was from the world markets and over the last decade, culturally as well India is far more in sync with the world cultures when it comes to consumption, purchase, expectations and experiences.
What will be interesting to watch is the adoption and adaptation of the Metaverse in the purely Indian context, especially when it comes to D2C and edgy B2C plays. I am looking forward to seeing the Metaverse at play in the colas, fruit-based beverages, pop culture fashion & LS and entertainment sectors.
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