Advertisment

“Our radio system hardware has been 5G-ready since 2015”

With the 5G trial underway in India, there is a lot of expectation, speculation, and apprehension about how the new telecom standard will change the shape.

author-image
VoicenData Bureau
New Update
Nitin Bansal
Nitin Bansal Ericsson
Advertisment

Nitin Bansal

With the 5G trial underway in India, there is a lot of expectation, speculation, and apprehension about how the new telecom standard will change the shape of India’s digital backbone and how it will create newer opportunities for both consumers and enterprises. As a technology provider, Ericsson has been playing a key role in the evolution of the 5G technology and standards. It has also been playing a critical role in developing use cases and demonstrating the potential of a commercial 5G network. Ericsson’s Head of India and Head, Network Solutions, Ericsson South East Asia, Oceania & India Nitin Bansal shared an update on the company’s 5G strategy, its partnership with Samsung, and the spectrum policy matters in India. Excerpts from his interview with Shubhendu Parth:

What is your strategy and portfolio for 5G rollouts in India?

Advertisment

Ericsson is a market leader when it comes to living 5G networks. Pioneering customers have chosen us as their 5G partner across the globe and we were the first ones to have deployed commercial live networks across four continents. As of now, we have 138 commercial 5G agreements and 85 live 5G networks globally. We have the right 5G portfolio in place to enable our customers to deploy 5G networks in all main frequency bands and utilize their valuable spectrum assets in the fastest and the most efficient way. This is proven in live networks with the best performance results, so our customers have every opportunity to be ahead with 5G.

So, from our perspective, we are ready for 5G rollouts. Ericsson’s Radio System hardware has been 5G-ready since 2015, enabling operators to upgrade to 5G with a remote software installation. In fact, we manufacture telecom equipment, including 4G, 5G radios and microwave products at our Pune facility and it is worth highlighting that we were the first company to manufacture telecom equipment in India since 1994.

We have been working with our operator partners as well as the academia community to test and develop various 5G use cases that are relevant for the market. To that effect, Ericsson and Qualcomm successfully collaborated at the India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2019 to showcase India’s first-ever live 5G video call using a 28 GHz spectrum. Ericsson took the lead at the India Mobile Congress 2019 to demonstrate the reliability, speed, and low latency of 5G through the Connected Music use case apart from the use case it demonstrated with Qualcomm. Ericsson enabled the first-ever 5G-powered Connected Music performance during the inauguration of the India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2019 in partnership with Airtel.

Advertisment

In January this year (2021), we partnered with Bharti Airtel to demonstrate 5G on a live network in Hyderabad. Leveraging Ericsson’s dynamic spectrum sharing technology, Airtel gave India its first experience of 5G over a commercial network.

Tell us something about the role of standards and patents in 5G adoption, as well as about collaborations like the recent Samsung patent handshake and interoperability agreements with major chipmakers?

Open standards and patent licensing are the key to success in the whole 5G ecosystem. They are important enablers of growth in the 5G and IoT areas. Ericsson is leading 5G standardization with most contributions for 4G and 5G and when counting declarations to ETSI, applying an essentiality filter, results in Ericsson being on top of the 5G patent race.

Advertisment

We started to lead the industry discussions around 5G as early as 2011, scoping out 5G services and requirements, and researching and developing the 5G technical concept. During the development of 5G/NR between 2016 and 2020, we have had the biggest impact on technical specifications with 37% of the specification text coming from contributions co-authored by Ericsson. This is almost twice the additions by any other company.

We started to lead the industry discussions around 5G as early as 2011, scoping out 5G services and requirements, and researching and developing the 5G technical concept.

Regarding the agreement with Samsung, we are pleased that we could reach a mutually fair and reasonable agreement that will allow us to focus on bringing new technology to the global market. The deal confirms the value of Ericsson’s patent portfolio and further illustrates our commitment to FRAND principles.

Advertisment

Is pilot or phase-wise trial the right way to go forward with 5G? What is Ericsson doing on this front?

We are ready to switch on 5G for India as soon as the spectrum is made available. As mentioned earlier, our Radio System hardware has been 5G-ready since 2015 enabling operators to upgrade to 5G with a remote software installation. We will partner with our customers to develop 5G use cases in the coming months.

What is your take on the state of the spectrum – bands, availability, pricing, etc. from a 5G context?

Advertisment

We believe India is ready for 5G and affordable 5G needs to be made available to the Indian operators. Given the ‘long-term benefits’ that 5G technology will bring to India, it needs to be viewed as critical infrastructure and the foundation on which India can realize its Digital India vision. Having a good digital infrastructure is very impactful for the economy and we know that increased penetration of mobile broadband drives economic growth.

What does India lack and what are its unique strengths when we compare its 5G curve with other regions?

India is currently the world’s second-largest telecommunications market and continues to register strong growth, which clearly shows the country’s appetite for a faster next-generation technology. We believe that 5G is the answer to unlock India’s potential in reaching the next phase of growth and realizing the government’s ‘Digital India’ vision.

Advertisment

While India remains the market with the highest usage per smartphone per month across the globe at 15.7GB/month (2020), it is expected to grow to 37 GB/month by 2026. 5G, in the initial phase, will be able to manage the increasing levels of data traffic. Enhanced Mobile Broadband, then, will be a way for service providers to manage the cost and the quality for end-users. This will help improve the customer expectations and experience with faster speeds, better reliability, and lower latency than 5G will bring. Over time, new and innovative 5G use cases will emerge in the areas of 5G for business and IoT.

Ericsson Consumer Lab's study “5 ways to a better 5G” has revealed that there is a high interest for 5G in India among consumers and they are willing to pay extra for the new capabilities that 5G brings. The report estimates that one in three early adopters globally are willing to pay a 20-30% premium for 5G services whereas Indian consumers have shown willingness to pay 50% more for 5G plans bundled with digital services and at least 40 million smartphone users in India could take up 5G in the first year of the technology being made available. We believe India is ready for 5G and affordable 5G needs to be made available to the operators at the earliest.

Bansal is Head of  Ericsson India & Head, Network Solutions, Ericsson South East Asia, Oceania & India

shubhendup@cybermedia.co.in

5g ericsson
Advertisment