JOIN USHere's all you need to know about 5G trial norms in India
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has greenlit 5G mobile network trials in the country, though Chinese suppliers have been left out of the six-month testing phase.
The world’s second-largest smartphone market has allowed Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio Infocomm, Vodafone-Idea and MTNL to test-run the highly-anticipated mobile network technology that promises up to 10 times the speed of its 4G predecessor. The trial will include two months’ time for firms to procure and set up equipment.
Airtel, Jio and Vodafone have tied up with equipment and technology providers Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung for the trials, while state-run MTNL will work with government-owned telecom technology developer C-DOT. Jio will also be running additional trials with its own in-house technology.
Major telecom equipment suppliers Huawei and ZTE have not been included in the pilot programme as domestic telecom players opted out of partnering with Chinese firms. The Indian government has cracked down on more than 200 Chinese apps and tightened rules for import of telecom equipment from China, citing security concerns after border clashes with Beijing.
The Telecom Department has tasked the service providers with covering rural and semi-urban areas in addition to urban centres under the trials, so as to ensure the technology has wider reach and penetration.
The firms will be permitted to conduct their trials on the mid-band (3.2 GHz to 3.67 GHz), millimeter wave band (24.25 GHz to 28.5 GHz) and in Sub-Gigahertz band (700 GHz). They can also use their existing spectrum (800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and 2500 MHz) for the trials.
The regulator also urged participants to test the locally-developed 5Gi standard— developed by IIT Madras and IIT Hyderabad—which claims to provide inexpensive 5G connectivity in villages across India.
Service providers will also be expected to help drive the testing of indigenously-developed use cases and equipment as part of the trials.
The trials, which are a precursor to 5G auctions that are slated to begin later this year or early next year, will seek to apply the technology across a wide range of domains like agriculture, education, health, transport, traffic management, smart cities and the Internet of Things (IOT).
The Telecom Department has said that the trials will be isolated, non-commercial and not connected with pre-existing networks of the telecom firms. The data coming out of the trials will be stored in India, the department said in a statement.