Nokia, Ericsson, Airtel, and the big boys club resisting India’s 5Gi - The Ken
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India has allowed 5G trials. It’s encouraging operators to use 5Gi, a superset with Indian contribution, sending Reliance Jio & Airtel into two opposing camps. At least publicly
Global telecoms vendors say 5Gi is not compatible with 5G; Indian tech developers say it is. Vendors say it’ll increase the cost, Indian team says it will not
First time ever India has a seat at the telecoms standards table, but its translation into actual use depends on the giant gear makers
Having been through many fits and starts over the past year, fifth-generation telecommunications, 5G, is finally approved for field trials in India. In May, the Department of Telecom (DoT) notified the rules for a six-month trial for 5G use and application. Somewhere in the copious text was a recommendation encouraging operators “to conduct trials using 5Gi technology in addition to the already known 5G technology”.
The ‘i’ in 5Gi stands for the tiny contribution that India has made to 5G, a first for the country in telecom standards. Technically, 5Gi is a superset of the global 5G standards; it’s like 5G+, but a good section of the global telecoms vendor community views it as “fragmentation”, something that has “never happened in wireless tech before”.
