Ericsson Announces Centre of Excellence and Innovation Lab for 5G in New Delhi

Ericsson, the popular telecom gear maker today announced that it has established a Centre of Excellence (CoE) and Innovation Lab for 5G in the country at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi. This first-of-its-kind 5G innovation Lab, which has been set up by Ericsson for Indian industry and academia to leverage, was dedicated to the nation by the Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha together with Borje Ekholm, President and CEO, Ericsson at the IIT Delhi today.

Speaking on the occasion, Manoj Sinha, Telecom Minister said: “I would like to congratulate Ericsson for taking the lead in terms of setting up the first 5G Center of Excellence and Innovation Lab in the country. The 5G Center of Excellence supports the Government’s plans to foster a robust and vibrant 5G ecosystem in India. We want India to be an active participant in the design, development and manufacture of 5G-based technologies, products and apps. I would, therefore, like to urge the industry, academia, students and start-ups to leverage the Ericsson Innovation Lab to develop new 5G-based apps and business models that could potentially lead to better agricultural yields, better healthcare, smarter cities, more efficient manufacturing and enhanced lifestyles. We need the entire ecosystem to work together to make 5G a reality in India over the next 2-3 years.”

Borje Ekholm, President and CEO, Ericsson, said: “Ericsson is leading 5G standardisation globally. The 5G Center of Excellence and Innovation Lab aims to stimulate the 5G ecosystem in India. We would like to unleash the creativity and innovation of the Indian industry, academia and entrepreneurs to fully leverage and make 5G a reality in India.”

According to an Ericsson report, “5G enabled digitisation revenue potential in India will be USD 27.3 billion by 2026. The Indian operators can generate additional revenue of USD 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 believes the largest opportunity will be seen in sectors like manufacturing, energy and utilities followed by public safety and health sectors. Some of the 5G use cases that could be implemented using the unique features of 5G technology include industrial control and automation, autonomous driving, safety and traffic efficiency services, hospital applications and medical data management amongst others.

Furthermore, Ericsson also conducted India’s first 5G over the air beam tracking demonstration on 3.5GHz spectrum using a pre-commercial end-to-end 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. By beam steering, a highly-focused beam, a stronger radio signal with higher data throughput is delivered over a greater distance using less energy. The results are spectral efficiency enhancement and gains for capacity, cell-edge throughput and mean user throughput.