There is a strong Made-in-India effort emerging in the industry

By Chris Rice

What is your strategy and portfolio for the 5G roll-out in India?

5G has the potential to improve quality of life by bridging social inequalities and providing equal access to the latest technologies. 5G will also add economic advantages as it will drive relentless innovation, open new streams of revenues and generate millions of employment opportunities. STL plans to participate in the 5G ecosystem as a supplier of Open RAN solutions, software, and services for the delivery and deployment of these systems. Our range of products includes open radio units, both indoor and outdoor, in various frequency bands; the RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) software platform, and additional components and services for delivery of 5G.

How is STL's enterprise strategy different from others? Also, what about private LTE and captive 5G pockets here?

Along with 5G gears, our approach has been to prepare the network infrastructure with as much of 5G technology as possible. We are focusing on providing many of the features, functionalities, and benefits of 5G. Fiber is an important element for 5G. In collaboration with government and private players, we are working to fibrerise towers across India and the globe. We have expanded our plant capacity from 18 fiber km to 33 fiber km to meet the growing need for fiber.

We have radio units for indoor 5G, coupled with investments and alliances with an enterprise 5G baseband unit supply. This radio and baseband unit combination allows us to provide an end-to-end enterprise 5G indoor solution that provides true 5G wireless coverage and capabilities but can be installed like WiFi – structured wiring, power over Ethernet, etc.

Tell us something about the role of standards and patents in 5G adoption?

5G has similar properties to other wireless generations relating to Standard and Essential Patents (SEPs). The leading industry-standard 3GPP tracks more than 700 technical specifications and technical reports related to 5G and over 87,000 individual patents. That said, 5G is the first time that there is an interoperable specification for interconnection and APIs in the RAN. These Open RAN specifications are detailed in O-RAN Alliance specifications.

Would pilots or phased trials be the right way to go forward with 5G?

All technologies roll out in a trial form. This helps suppliers and carriers vet the technology and see how it performs in limited production environments, allowing for enhancements to occur. The potential of 5G can be extracted with continuous 5G trials. New-age test solutions are developed to accommodate complex use cases and overall advancements in architecture. This has evolved the need for advanced emulation and verification technology.

What’s your take on the state of the 5G spectrum in India – bands, availability, and pricing, etc?

We are somewhat agnostic to spectrum as a supplier of 5G Open RAN technology. But we think that spectrum will be the lifeblood of 5G and is critical for the larger ecosystem from a policy, allocation, and pricing perspective. We are glad to make equipment to cover any band. The more spectrum that opens up, the more opportunity for broadband to the larger portions of the population. Broadband is known to drive economic development and access to information and applications for users, reducing the digital divide. 5G is opening up more spectrum, providing more broadband speed for a given amount of spectrum, and delivering low latency applications never imagined previously.

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

While 5G provides some impressive new capabilities, it does require significant investment for a full rollout. That investment needs to be recouped through new subscriber growth, higher-speed wireless plans, or new applications across the user base. India has a large population of about 1.4B people. There are almost 1.2B wireless subscribers, and of those, about 44% are on 4G today. Many parts of the world have rolled out 5G already and are growing their 5G subscriber base. India has an opportunity to drive 5G adoption and can do it in a way that is unique using new lower cost, more interoperable Open RAN 5G equipment. This equipment is lower in Capex and Opex and is more widely available from a broader ecosystem of suppliers.

Do you feel that the current state of geopolitics will affect the 5G evolution in India in any major way? Based on market dynamics and some geopolitical issues, there is a strong Made-in-India effort emerging in the industry, opening new economic opportunities for India and driving job growth. The general open networking efforts and the Open RAN wireless area specifically are opening up new opportunities in India to be a global wireless supplier.

Should we also start thinking about 6G-readiness as we embark on 5G? Any suggestions or any attempts on your side?

Even though there are discrete steps in wireless evolution, like 3G, 4G, 5G, etc., innovation in wireless is something that happens on a continual basis. As referenced above, the over 87,000 patents in the 5G area are something that happens from daily work to improve wireless technology, and then those innovations are debated and codified in standards. Once consensus is agreed to, there is a specification that represents the next “G” of wireless. That work for 6G is happening now in labs all around the world, even as 5G is rolling out in operator networks today.

Rice is CEO, Access Solutions, STL

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