Airtel demo showcases Indias first cloud gaming over 5G network

As part of its ongoing trials, telecom operator Bharti Airtel recently conducted what it described as India’s first cloud gaming session in a 5G environment—showing what Indian consumers can look forward to once commercial 5G services are officially rolled out in the  mobile-first country sometime next year.

Airtel 5G trial: 1 Gbps download speed
The 5G cloud gaming demonstrated in Manesar, Gurgaon, featured two of the top gamers in the country—Salmad Ahmad (aka Mamba) and Naman Mathur (aka Mortal)—taking part in a sprint racing challenge on Asphalt to test the ultra-low latency 5G environment. The trial used the 3500 MHz high capacity spectrum band allotted by the Department of Telecom, according to Bharti Airtel.

The two gamers used mid-segment smartphones equipped with test 5G SIMs for the trial sessions, which delivered download speeds above 1 Gbps and latency in the range of 10 milliseconds. In comparison, the current 4G mobile internet speeds in India has an average latency of 47 milliseconds and an average download speed of 17.77 Mbps with upload speed of 5.09 Mbps, according to Speedtest Global Index for July 2021.
“Cloud gaming will be one of the biggest use cases of 5G thanks to the combination of high speed and low latency,” said Randeep Sekhon, CTO of Bharti Airtel. “After delivering India’s first 5G demo over a test network, we are thrilled to conduct this exciting 5G gaming session. Imagine real-time gaming on the go with someone sitting in another part of the world. This is just the beginning of an exciting digital future that Airtel will enable for its customers as we prepare to roll out 5G in India.”

5G set to transform mobile landscape in India
India already has the highest 4G availability among the largest South Asian countries, according to Ookla’s global performance metrics Speedtest Intelligence.  Now, service providers in the country are gearing up to take it to the next level with 5G. Early this year, Airtel tested 5G services over a 4G network in Hyderabad, and has recently partnered with Nokia and Ericsson to conduct 5G trials in different cities.

This will prove to be a boon for India’s thriving online gaming market, which has been dominated by consumers who are already waiting for mass 5G rollouts. An ENV Media report on mobile devices noted how “around half of all smartphone users in India play mobile games,” with Android devices as “the primary medium” for online and offline games.

“Xiaomi with 26% (with five of the top models provided by this brand); Samsung with 20% (while growing the most YoY among the leaders, 52%); Vivo with 16%; Realme and OPPO both with 11%. Realme had the cheapest 5G offer on the market, while OnePlus shipped the most 5G-ready units (a 33% share in the niche segment),” according to the research, which aggregated proprietary data from its Indian affiliate SevenJackpots, an online comparison site for online roulette sites and other popular online casino offerings.