Ericsson And Nokia May Give India 5G Connectivity
5G standards are expected to be complete by 2020 for their first commercial deployment.
Telecom gear makers Ericsson and Nokia have commenced talks with Indian telecom companies and policy makers so that they could look out for possible engagements to bring fifth-generation (5G) telecommunication technology to India as it launches in the rest of the world.
Still in its standardisation phase, 5G is likely to be ready for commercial deployment by 2020.
Yet, both the companies are discussing and observing telcos’ interest and readiness for 5G, while at the same time recognizing relevant spectrum band so that it can be supported and brought into action.
Though Ericsson and Nokia are globally known for their stiff rivalry, these stalwarts are collaborating for this special project and recently visited India to hold meetings with industry stakeholders in order to propagate the cause of 5G in India.
Magnus Ewerbring, CTO of the APAC region at Ericsson, was in India to meet telco customers and government officials. In an interview to ET he said, “It’s important to start to think about it now and ensure that step by step we are prepared for it both from network and regulatory perspectives”.
Ewerbring tried to explain the bright scope for 5G in India by pointing out to the fact that there is already a good understanding of 5G in India. Not sure about the timeline, he said “I can’t say when operators will start, but India is a huge country and can start very early with a limited deployment”.
Amit Marwah, head of E2E Sales Solutioning at Nokia India said, since Nokia is part of the Telecommunications Standards Development Society, it is in talks with operators to understand India-relevant use cases.
How 5G can change the present scenario was actually explained by Milivoj Vela, Technology Vision Lead for MEA/India at Nokia Networks. He said that 5G technology is capable of delivering 100 megabit per second speed at homes and will be capable of handling 1,000 times more data traffic when commercialised by 2020.
Now that is a super-efficient technology!
Apart from augmenting mobile broadband speeds, 5G will also support industrial Internet, which in turn implies higher acceptance of Internet of Things (IoT) and related applications.
Ewerbring tried to highlight the importance and need of 5G in India as he told ET, “If a country uses a band which is very common with the rest of the world, there will be more focus and technology will come out much quicker. It is better for India to be on the same balance as the rest of the world”.
He also emphasised the importance of keeping the regulatory side in mind as he remarked, “Spectrum is the important element for 5G. India has to come up with those rules and terms. They (policymakers) can look around the world and see examples on allocations. It’s important India gets good allocation of spectrum”…. “If you go higher around 28 Ghz, there is also lot of interest”.
At present, spectrum bands between the range of 700 Mhz and 2.6 Ghz are available for mobile services in India.
Samsung is already working with the likes of SK Telecom and US’ Verizon for 5G tests in 28 GHz for 5G services. Wi-fi services, on the other hand, are generally used between 2.4 Ghz and 5.9 Ghz.
Although the 5G standards are expected to be complete by 2020 for their first commercial deployment, yet many operators in the US, South Korea and Japan have plans to try out 5G in 2016 itself and commercially launch the first 5G solutions starting 2017.
What’s more, it is possible that 5G trials could happen in India as soon as 2018! That is so, so exciting isn’t it?!
However, the problem that seems to emerge in this seemingly ideal scenario is that India still lags behind developed nations in achieving 4G networks itself, which are being deployed in urban and semi-urban areas.
In this case, 5G seems like a far cry. But we should not lose hope and should look to Erricson and Nokia project to bring this to life in India!
Originally published at Chip-Monks.
