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Jio is not the only reason India has to be thrilled about 5G

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DailyBite
DailyBiteApr 10, 2017 | 15:16

Jio is not the only reason India has to be thrilled about 5G

Mukesh Ambani may have said that Jio network will soon be upgraded to 5G and will cover 99 per cent of India's population, but it is not the only mobile network trying to turn this into reality.

Nokia, a company that had dominated the Indian handset market in a pre-smartphone era, now plans to bring 5G to India.

According to a report, Nokia has signed memorandums of understanding (MoU) with Indian telecom giants Airtel and BSNL. During the Mobile World Congress 2017, where Nokia made an international comeback with the re-launch of its most- popular feature phone and the launch of its Android devices, the Finnish company stated that it would work on 5G technology standard and management of connected devices.

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"Thoughts behind these MoUs would be to introduce 5G here, and what are the steps required for the same, besides identifying applications to define the target segment, which will lead to a complete 5G strategy for telecom companies," Sanjay Malik, head of India market at Nokia, told the Economic Times.

In March 2017, Malik had said, “After our successful association with Bharti Airtel for 2G, 3G and 4G technologies, we are proud to partner for the future of mobile networks. We will leverage our global experience in 5G-related industry projects and collaborations to enable Bharti Airtel to prepare their networks for greater capacity, coverage and speed.”

Malik said this was only an introductory phase as the commercial roll out of the 5G connectivity is expected to take place during 2019-2020. Field and content and application trials will start around 2018.

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Photo: Twitter

"After 4G, the future is 5G and IoT, which is useful in the concept such as smart cities, the MoU will help BSNL to draw a framework for transition from the current network to futuristic 5G network," BSNL Chairman Anupam Shrivastava had earlier told PTI.

With IoT or Internet of Things, Airtel plans to bring innovation to the sectors of connected vehicles, industrial automation, healthcare etc.

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According to a report in the Financial Express last month, Abhay Savargaonkar, the director of network services (India and South Asia) for Bharti Airtel said, “The 5G and Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications have tremendous potential to transform lives and we are pleased to partner with Nokia to enable these future technologies for our customers.” 

Nokia is also setting up an experience centre in Bangalore to try and understand the stakeholder requirements for 5G in India better.

While the struggle is still on, to make 4G coverage better and cheaper for the masses, it is not at all too early to start dreaming about 5G. 

"Whole cycle of 2G took 10 years to develop in the world, 3G took less, and 4G even lesser. Today, India is sitting on par with any other place in the world in terms of technology, and we want to leverage that opportunity here," says Amit Marwah, the head of end-to-end sales solutioning for the Indian market at Nokia.

But Nokia, Airtel and BSNL need to be wary of competition because Reliance Jio is eyeing the prize as well. Samsung, the South Korean tech giant, on February 28, announced the "I&G (Infill & Growth) Project" for Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd that aims to expand both current network capacity as well as network coverage.

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The project will extend Jio services in rural areas by expanding its reach to over 90 per cent of the population.

Last updated: April 10, 2017 | 15:16
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