“There is no complete end-to-end testing using all of the 5G protocols. So, what you have in Chennai is a portion of the 5G,” the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI<\/a>) director general Rajan S Mathews told ETT and added that it was though a good beginning but that requires bringing the actual equipment.
“The field trials can be started as soon as the government gives a go-ahead and allocate spectrum suitably,” a Delhi-based group that represents Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio said.
On June 3, soon after taking over as a telecom<\/a> minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad<\/a> said that his priority would be to initiate 5G trials within the 100 days.
Query to the telecom department did not elicit any response.
In 2018, the government has asked the telecom carriers and their vendor partners to showcase India-specific 5G use cases latest by early 2019.
Even after the submission of joint proposals in November 2018, by Indian telecom carriers— Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio, together with their technology partners, they continue to grapple.
Market leader Vodafone Idea has partnered with Swedish Ericsson and Chinese Huawei<\/a> while Bharti Airtel has teamed up with Finnish Nokia and Ericsson, and is also expected to sign up Huawei, having a competitive edge, for 5G pilot initiatives.
Korean Samsung has partnered with billionaire Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio.
“We are partnering with all the operators in their next-generation strategy and 5G technology is being explored,” Nitin Bansal, Head of Network Solutions at Southeast Asia, Oceania & India, Ericsson earlier said.
Bansal, however, added that it would take some time for the India specific use cases to evolve.
Huawei that has the highest number of 5G patents, expects that field trials in India would commence soon, and said that it could accelerate India’s 5G journey on the back of its innovative ‘ultra-lean sites for immediate 5G activation’ offering.
Nokia felt that next-generation trials would start anytime in the second half of 2019, and according to its spokesperson, the company is “ready to support operators” in India in implementing their 5G strategy.
“We have to get the actual specifications based on 3.3 GHz - 3.6 GHz radio waves, and have to accommodate test criteria including end-to-end handset testing,” Mathews said.
Funded by the telecom department, the 5G testbed<\/a> set up at IIT Chennai is aimed to encourage industry to take an early lead in network deployments with India-specific use cases that could also transform into commercial rollouts.
As a part of a three-year program to drive end-to-end 5G testbeds with a focus on innovation and research and development (R&D), the department, besides Chennai, has also roped in IIT Delhi, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Kanpur, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Centre of Excellence in Wireless Technology (CEWiT), and the Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering and Research (SAMEER).
Citing norms, the Wireless Planning and Coordination Wing (WPC) that carries out statutory functions of the Ministry of Communications has earlier said that frequencies for 5G trials can be allocated only for 90 days.
Following the development, in February this year, the department then rushed to form a committee under the IIT Kanpur director Abhay Karandikar to look into spectrum issues for 5G pilots.
Karandikar-headed group has though recommended that the trial spectrum should be allocated for a reasonable duration or for at least one year with a minimum cost to service providers for carrying out the trial initiatives.
In 2017, the Centre, under the leadership Stanford University professor AJ Paulraj has set up a high-level 5G Forum to prepare a 5G roadmap with an aim to launch commercial services simultaneously with developed countries by 2020.
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