Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, the state-owned telco, is going to launch ultra-high speed fifth generation, 5G services in accord with other telcos worldwide. BSNL seems to be keen on the task of developing infrastructure for launching the fifth generation networking technology in India. To accomplish this, the state-owned telco is partnering with companies like Nokia, ZTE and Coriant. BSNL plans to start its 5G services by the year 2020. Anil Jain, BSNL Chief General Manager, said: “BSNL will launch 5G services the same day as their launch globally.” The General Manager who spoke at the Mobile Device Summit 2018, organized by The Mobile Association (TMA) highlighted that although the telco had been late for the adoption of 3G and 4G technology, it wouldn’t do the same for 5G services.
BSNL’s efforts also seem to be materialising as the telco and Japan’s NTT Advanced Technology Corporation with its India partner Virgo Corporation have signed a MoU (memorandum of understanding) in February this year, to collaborate on creating a 5G testbed.
Vipin Tyagi, who is the Executive Director at Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) said that it is essential that all the stakeholders collaborate proactively so that a robust end-to-end 5G mobile ecosystem can be developed.
Last year in March, the Finnish brand Nokia had also joined hands with BSNL to leverage its global experience in 5G-related industry initiatives with an emphasis on a software-defined network (SDN) and multi-access edge computing. The US-based packet optical and mobile routing solutions company, Coriant also partnered with BSNL to study and deploy 5G-based industrial internet applications for enterprise customers.
Anupam Shrivastava, Chairman of BSNL, had remarked that the company would promote information sharing related to areas like waste management, healthcare and education through its partnership with Coriant. Not only partnerships, but the state-owned telco is also already in line for buying the premium 700 Mhz band from the Department of Telecom (DoT) so that it could also launch 5G services, besides 4G.
A DoT panel, specially assigned with the task of 5G infrastructure allocations has revealed that spectrum of 700 Mhz, 3.5 Ghz, 24 Ghz and 28 Ghz bands have been reported to be available for the launch of 5G services.
