- The Indian government has received proposals for 5G trials from China’s Huawei and ZTE also
- 5G field trials would be undertaken only through licensed telcos “in a restrictive, limited geographical area for specific use cases”
- The government is yet to take a call on Huawei’s participation in 5G trials and eventual deployments
- The government has decided to allocate 5G trial spectrum for a year that will be extendable, for a one-time fee of Rs 5,000 per location
The government has received six proposals for 5G trials, including those from China’s Huawei and ZTE, but Chinese vendor participation would hinge on the recommendations of a panel looking into 5G security issues, telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told Parliament Wednesday.
Prasad told Lok Sabha that the 5G field trials would be undertaken only through licensed telcos “in a restrictive, limited geographical area for specific use cases”.
A committee headed by the principal scientific advisor (PSA) has been recently constituted to give recommendations on security relating to 5G technology and trials in India.
Call on Huawei still pending
The government is yet to take a call on Huawei’s participation in 5G trials and eventual deployments even while telcos have sought clarity before taking a long-term view on investment decisions as billions of dollars would be at stake in greenfield 5G rollouts.
The US, which on May 21 had barred Huawei’s products from its market and stopped US companies from supplying software and components to the Chinese company, has been pressing India and others to bar the company from their 5G development and deployment, citing concerns of Chinese surveillance on these networks.
The government recently underlined plans to conduct the next airwaves sale in calendar 2019 itself, which will mark the debut of 5G spectrum. In the run-up, it has decided to allocate 5G trial spectrum for a year that will be extendable, for a one-time fee of Rs 5,000 per location.
The Broadband India Forum (BIF), which counts Huawei, Qualcomm, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Hughes and Intel among key members, has written to DoT and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), seeking a review of spectrum base prices, failing which, it feels, the auction would fail.
The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents all major telcos, has said the recommended base price of 5G spectrum is nearly 30-40% higher than the rates in South Korea and the US.
(News courtesy: Economic Times)
