IMC 2024: Over 950 Million Internet Users in India; 5G Coverage Expanded to All Districts, PM Modi Says

India Mobile Congress — or IMC 2024 — was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, alongside the World Telecommunication Standardisation Assembly (WTSA) 2024. At the annual digital technology forum, several milestones in the areas of mobile network connectivity, broadband adoption, and optical fibre network expansion were highlighted by the Prime Minister. Over the course of this week, IMC 2024 will see participation from telecom operators like Reliance Jio and Airtel, as well as technology firms like Xiaomi and Qualcomm.

Inaugurating the 8th edition of the India Mobile Congress, PM Modi said that India now has 1.2 billion mobile users and more than 950 million internet users, while the country accounts for over 40 percent of global real-time digital transactions. 

"India leads globally in data affordability, with data costing just Rs. 12 per GB, while many countries charge 10-12X more," the PM Modi said, adding that 5G network coverage had expanded to all districts in the country, while the optical fibre network was expanded by a great deal over the past 10 yeas, covering over eight times the distance between the Moon and Earth.

Another area highlighted by the Prime Minister was the increase in smartphone manufacturing in the country, The Prime Minister also pointed to investments in semiconductor technology, as well as efforts to produce entirely 'Made-in-India' handsets, including components like processors.

Meanwhile, Bharti Enterprises Chairman Sunil Mittal shared details of Airtel's recently introduced anti-spam technology that is designed to block calls from scammers and fraudulent messages, in order to protect users. "We are now working with the industry to ensure, and with the Department of Telecom, that our people, when they're using these networks and enjoying all those services, are safe and secure," Mittal added.

Vodafone Idea (Vi) promoter Kumar Mangalam Birla said on Tuesday that the beleaguered telecom operator's capex cycle was kickstarted by its follow-on-public offer (FPO), where it reportedly received bids worth Rs. 90,000 crore, allowing Vi to announce new capex deals with Ericsson, Nokia, and Samsung.

“At Vi, we're helping MSMEs break barriers and access new markets through 5G, IoT, AI, and cloud technologies. With our Vi Business ReadyForNext program, over 1.6 lakh MSMEs are now future-ready. As we build a world where virtual and augmented reality become part of daily life, we remain committed to empowering small businesses to lead India's digital growth," Birla said.

Reliance Jio Chairman Akash Ambani pushed for data localisation at IMC 2024. "The scale and speed of multilingual data generation in India, which will drive the AI revolution, will grow exponentially. We request the government to expedite the updating of the 2020 draft of the Data Centre Policy that Indian data should remain in India's data centres," he said.

At IMC 2024, Jio also announced the launch of two new feature phones with 4G connectivity — JioBharat V3 and JioBharat V4. The handsets arrive a year after the JioBharat V3 was introduced in India, and offer access to the internet as well as the company's digital services including JioPay and JioCinema.