DoT drops plan on local 5G standards after strong opposition from telcos

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is dropping its contentious plan to push for a separate India-specific standard for 5G -- also known as 5Gi -- after strong opposition from telecom companies.

In a major relief to operators, the Telecom Standards Development Society of India (TSDI), backed by the government, informed the Telecom Enginneering Centre (TEC) under the DoT on January 25 not to proceed with the process of adopting 5Gi as a national standard. The TSDI has also informed the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) that it will follow the global 5G standards as laid out by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and expects that its own 5Gi standards are merged with it in the next global meeting. It has also made it clear that it does not intend to submit any proposal for further updates on 5Gi.        

Telcos had raised a ruckus about the proposal, insisting that the move to opt for a separate Indian standard would substantially increase network costs as well as mobile device prices because specific chipsets would now have to be made for India and the country would be unable to leverage global economies of scale.

The proposal would also make inter-operability between other global networks a serious problem, impacting services such as seamless roaming globally. The companies had also pointed out that it would seriously derail India’s ambition to be a manufacturing hub of 5G telecom equipment and mobile devices for the world.

Reasons for resistance

• Network costs would go up as they had to be designed specifically for an Indian standard for 5G
• Lack of inter-operability with other global networks will make global roaming an issue
• Mobile device prices will go up as specific chip for India is needed
• No support from global operators

As part of the trial for 5G, telcos were asked to test out the 5Gi standards. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has asked telcos to make presentations on the pros and cons of the technology.

The TSDI had been spearheading the move for a separate standard in alliance with IITs and research centres. However, in its communication to the ITU as well as TEC, it said it expected its proposal, submitted in December, to merge 5Gi standards with the global standards, to be accepted in the forthcoming global meeting in March.

Consequently, the TSDI would allow the 3GPP to support all markets with a single solution and will not submit any further updates on 5Gi.

While it had been pushing for the Indian standard for 5G, the TDSI had contended that it suited Indian conditions in that it is designed to work in rural areas with low speed mobility and large cells with a radius of six kilometres, with the latest version going up to 12 kilometres.

This, said the TDSI, could ensure affordable broadband based on indigenous technology to cover the country.

However, the Indian standards had not drawn support from global majors in the 3GPP as most of these countries do not have the peculiarities of a large rural population. Explaining the potential challenges if the standard were to be pushed through, a telecom company executive said the two were totally different.

“3GPP and 5Gi are two different standards for 5G. It is like choosing between CDMA and GSM. If we had adopted 5Gi, India would have remained an island,” the executive said.