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Senior industry executives said DoT’s insistence on in-country testing of network equipment by local labs recognised by its technical arm, Telecom Engineering Centre (TEC), could end up disrupting timely gear supplies to telcos and derail 5G<\/a> rollouts. They want the in-country testing deadlineto be extended to January 1, 2023, from the current July 1 deadline.
This, they said, is since local labs are yet to gain the necessary expertise to undertake comprehensive testing of latest imported radio network gear such as base stations, microwave systems, switches or routers amongst others.
“Testing and certification of network gear is highly complex and the Indian labs ecosystem is working overtime to gain this expertise…but since they will be testing radio equipment for the first time, they need more time to move up the learning curve as training efforts have been hindered by the pandemic, shortage of skilled manpower and restrictions on international travel,” a top executive of a leading global networks vendor told ET.
Separately, network vendors have also urged the government to exempt 2G network gear from the mandatory local testing drill. “We’ve pointed out to the government that while 2G technology is being phased out in many countries, it’s still needed in India to support nearly 280 million 2G users, and so should be exempted from the MTCTE regime to ensure unhindered delivery of 2G services,” said the executive cited.
Another industry executive said that to ensure zero disruptions to ongoing and upcoming 4G\/5G network rollouts, it’s essential that the government defers the local testing implementation date to January 1, 2023. Some telcos have even lobbied with the government to push back the deadline further to July 1, 2023.
The government, on its part, is looking to auction 5G spectrum in June-July and targeting the first 5G call by the August-September timeframe.