Ericsson has set up a Centre of Excellence (CoE) and Innovation Lab for 5G at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi.
Manoj Sinha, minister of State for Communications (I/C) and Minister of State for Railways, and Borje Ekholm, president and CEO of Ericsson, announced the 5G innovation lab at the IIT Delhi today.
The development assumes significance because telecom regulator TRAI is in the process of finalizing spectrum for 5G mobile technology.
Telecom operators such as Bharti Airtel, BSNL, Vodafone India and Reliance Jio will be seeking 5G opportunities in India in 2020 and later.
Globally, most telecom operators are seeking cost effective 5G spectrum to focus on building 5G networks. Since 5G smartphones will be ready for commercial use by the end of 2019, wide-spread penetration of 5G is not expected in India till 2020.
Indian telecom operators are not ready for spending on fixed wireless networks to boost their 5G broadband revenue from home and enterprise customers.
Telecom chipset makers Qualcomm and Intel will be supporting the 5G developments in India to bring out 5G devices and smartphones.
“We want India to be an active participant in the design, development and manufacturing of 5G-based technologies, products and apps,” Manoj Sinha said. “We need the eco system to work together to make 5G a reality in India over the next 2-3 years.”
Ericsson said 5G enabled digitization revenue potential in India will be $27.3 billion by 2026. The Indian operators can generate additional revenue of $13 billion or half of the stated potential if they take up roles beyond being connectivity and infrastructure providers to become service enablers and service creators.
Ericsson conducted 5G over the air beam tracking demonstration on 3.5GHz spectrum using a pre-commercial system including 5G-NR, VRAN and VCORE. The demonstration includes 3GPP 5G NR Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna technology with adaptive beamforming and beam tracking techniques to deliver robust and sustained mobile broadband communications.
From left to right – Manoj Sinha, minister of Communications, Government of India and Borje Ekholm, president and CEO, Ericsson
