All of the private telecom operators in India, including Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea, and Bharti Airtel, have said that 5Gi should be made a part of 3GPP. The telcos want the Indian government to not lose focus from 3GPP because it would ensure economies of scale. According to an ET Telecom report, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the representative body of the private Indian Telecom operators, said that 5Gi should be a part of the global or 3GPP 5G standard. This will ensure that the telcos can be one of the early adopters of the technology and would also keep the benefits of economies of scale in the table.
No Devices in Present That Support 5Gi
Lt Gen Dr SP Kochhar, Director General of COAI, said that even if the telcos wanted to test the 5Gi standard during their ongoing trials, they can’t do so since there aren’t any devices present in the country which support the 5Gi standard. Kochhar said that 5Gi is yet to be developed, validated, and fully tested. This means that the vendors would have to go against the principle of economies of scale if they want to roll out devices that come with 5Gi support. At present, the vendors are focused on manufacturing products that support the 5G standard of 3GPP.
Kochhar further said that developing chipsets for support 5Gi would take another one to three years. On top of that, the cost of developing it and manufacturing it would be too high because these chipsets will only be relevant in the Indian market.
Bharti Airtel has already shared its 5G test results in partnership with Ericsson, which was done with the help of 3GPP compliant FWA devices.
According to COAI, the benefit of 5Gi would be only there when it is interoperable, implementable, and has benefits for the entire Indian 5G networks. Thus the industry body has recommended that the components of 5Gi be made a part of 3GPP. The harmonisation would pay off well for India in the long run if it decides to go ahead with the 5Gi standard.
