India Approves 5G Network Trials Without Chinese Oems

India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has given mobile service providers, including Airtel, Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea (Vi), and MTNL, permission to start 5G trials in the country. These network providers will conduct 5G trials across India and will cover rural, semi-urban, and urban areas.

For conducting 5G trials, the aforesaid network operators will work with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM). While Reliance will use its own indigenous technology for network trials, other telecom companies have teamed up with Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, and C-DOT. Notably, none of these OEMs are from China. This also means that Huawei and ZTE are not involved in India’s 5G trials.

The government also urges telcos to conduct trials using 5Gi technology. Developed by IIT Madras, Centre of Excellence in Wireless Technology (CEWiT), and IIT Hyderabad, the government claims that 5Gi “facilitates much larger reach of the 5G towers and Radio networks.”