Last year, Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal claimed that India would achieve “complete 5G” by the end of 2026, reflecting the ambition behind India’s fastest ever telecommunications deployment. However, for a vast country with a population of over 1.4 billion, is the idea of operating solely on 5G feasible, or even desirable?

Undoubtedly, India has a remarkable 5G story. According to a recent press release from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) of India, “5G services have been launched in all states/union territories across the country, covering 99.9% of administrative regions and achieving a population coverage rate of 85%. To achieve this coverage, over 500000 5G base transceiver stations (BTS) have been installed.

Reliance Jio and Badi Telecom launched commercial services in October 2022 and quickly expanded network coverage to thousands of cities and regions. Vodafone Idea, India’s third-largest service provider, will launch 5G services in early 2025.

According to Ericsson Mobile’s report, by the end of 2025, the number of 5G subscribers in India will be approximately 394 million. In addition, Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) has become one of the most promising 5G application scenarios in the country.

However, despite the continuous development of the 5G ecosystem, 4G and 2G networks are far from becoming redundant. Although Jio adopts 5G Independent Networking (SA) network, Badi Telecom still operates 5G Non Independent Networking (NSA), which relies on the existing 4G core network. 4G networks continue to play a crucial role in providing coverage continuity and voice fallback. According to Nokia’s 2025 Mobile Broadband Index report, 5G data traffic in India is expected to surpass 4G by the first quarter of 2026, which means that as of now, 5G has not yet become the dominant network for data usage.

In addition, achieving a complete transition to 5G native voice services in such a vast and diverse market requires near universal device compatibility and sustained high-quality network coverage. Although the popularity of smartphones is high, India still has a large number of feature phone and old smartphone users who are unlikely to migrate to 5G in the next two years. For these users, 2G and 4G networks are still essential and may continue to be so in the coming years.

Premature shutdown of traditional networks may result in the exclusion of some populations or force accelerated and costly device replacement cycles. In a country where affordability of communication services is crucial, it will be difficult to justify its rationale.

Considering that not all telecommunications companies have even started providing 5G services, it is not feasible to achieve “5G only” by the end of 2026. The state-owned telecommunications company BSNL will not launch 4G services throughout India until October 2025 and has not yet started providing 5G services.

India needs the coexistence of technologies from different generations to meet diverse needs. The new generation technology aims to provide capacity and performance, while the old network provides wide area coverage and supports low-cost devices. Most countries continue to operate multiple network layers in parallel for many years and re plan their spectrum based on changes in usage patterns.

In this context, a more realistic approach for India is not to phase out old generation technologies, but to ensure wider adoption of 5G services and develop 5G application scenarios.