Centre gives go-ahead for 5G trials in India
By TIOL News Service
NEW DELHI, MAY 04, 2021: THE Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on Tuesday allowed Airtel, Jio, Vodafone and MTNL to conduct trials for use and applications of 5G technology and spectrum trials for a period of six months.
The applicant Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) have tied up with original equipment manufacturers and technology providers which are Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung and C-DOT. In addition, Reliance Jio will also conduct trials using its own indigenous technology.
The permissions have been given by DoT as per the priorities and technology partners identified by TSPs themselves.
The experimental spectrum is being given in various bands which include the mid-band (3.2 GHz to 3.67 GHz), millimeter wave band (24.25 GHz to 28.5 GHz) and in the Sub-Gigahertz band (700 GHz).
TSPs will also be permitted to use the existing spectrum owned by them (800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and 2500 MHz) for conducting the trials.
Each telcos trial will cover rural and semi-urban settings along with urban settings so that the "benefit of 5G Technology proliferates across the country and is not confined only to urban areas."
The objectives include testing the 5G spectrum propagation characteristics especially in the Indian context, model tuning and evaluation of chosen equipment and vendors, testing of indigenous technology, testing of applications, and to test 5G phones and devices.
"The TSPs are encouraged to conduct trials using 5Gi technology in addition to the already known 5G technology," said the department. The 5G Radio Interface Technology (5Gi) is the indigenously developed technology which facilitates a much larger reach of the 5G towers and radio networks.
5G technology is expected to deliver improved user experience in terms of data download rates (expected to be 10 times that of 4G), up to three times greater spectrum efficiency, and ultra-low latency to enable Industry 4.0.