Nokia has already started conducting lab trials with its telecom operator partners. It says that planning for 5G field trials is also underway.
While the government is making all efforts to roll out 5G in tandem with global markets, Finnish telecom gear maker Nokia has said that the field trials will take place only in the second half of the year.
The delay, according to Nokia, is to coincide with the availability of 5G chipsets and smartphones in the country, ET reported.
Just a day ago, leading telecom operator Vodafone Idea Ltd has also expressed that the most appropriate time to hold 5G spectrum auctions will be somewhere after 2020 as India does not need the airwaves yet. It feels that 4G is more than adequate for most customers and Internet of Things (IoT) services in the near term.
“For the field trials, planning and spectrum are required… trials will only take place in the second half of this year. At the same time, we will have clarity on 5G standards as Release 16 is currently being worked on at 3GPP,” Sanjay Malik, head of India market at Nokia, told ET.
Nokia Starts Lab Trials
Meanwhile, Nokia has already started conducting lab trials with its telecom operator partners. It said that planning for 5G field trials is also underway.
It is also learnt that Nokia is currently working with Bharti Airtel and BSNL to test 5G technology.
It must be mentioned that the telecom department had last year given permission to Nokia and other vendors like Ericsson, Huawei, Samsung, Cisco, and NEC to conduct 5G field trials in India. Following which Nokia submitted their proposals for doing trials in the Delhi-NCR region and Bengaluru.
DoT May Levy ₹ 5K Fee per Location for 5G Trails
Amid all this debate on when 5G field trials should be conducted in India, there are also reports that the telecom department has agreed to a “per location’ charging model and it may levy a nominal spectrum allocation charge of ₹ 5,000 per location for field trials.
The telecom department had initially planned to charge for 5G trial spectrum allocations on ‘a per radiating node’ basis.
In addition, the DoT is considering extending the duration for allocating 5G spectrum for trials to one year instead of the present 90-days limit.
