Govt sets up indigenous 5G test bed to drive products, applications demo: Devusinh Chauhan

An indigenous 5G test bed has been established at a cost of Rs 224 crore for experimenting and demonstrating 5G products, applications and use cases, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.

Many 5G products are being developed by the Centre for Development of Telematics (CDoT) and Indian startups, in line with policy initiatives of the government through flagship programmes and schemes for telecom products, Minister of State for Communications Devusinh Chauhan said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. The 5G technology offers benefits, such as high speed, low latency, high connection density and greater reliability.

Also read: Consumer-lending fintech startup Credit Fair raises USD 10 mn

“Also, an indigenous 5G test bed has been set up at a total cost of Rs 224 crore to facilitate for experimenting and demonstrating 5G products/ applications/ use cases,” the minister said. As many as 31 companies have been selected under the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for the manufacturing of telecom products. “With the objective to build a strong ecosystem for 5G, the scheme guidelines for PLI scheme have been amended to facilitate design-led manufacturing of 5G products in the country,” Chauhan said.

The 5G spectrum auction saw “enthusiastic participation” of the industry and 71 per cent of the total spectrum put up, has been sold. The total bid amount for the spectrum for which rights were acquired by successful bidders stood at Rs 1,50,173 crore. Nearly 72097.85 MHz of spectrum with a validity period of 20 years has been put to auction. The minister further informed that the date of mandatory certification of 4G products covered under the third and fourth phase of Mandatory Testing and Certification of Telecom Equipment (MTCTE) has been extended.

“Based on stakeholders’ requests, the date of mandatory certification of 4G products covered under phase-III and phase-IV of Mandatory Testing and Certification of Telecom Equipment (MTCTE) has been extended from 01.07.2022 to 01.07.2023,” he said. The 5G products have not been notified under the mechanism to date. Sufficient labs are not available for testing the technical and other parameters of the 4G product.

To another question, the Minister said there is no proposal at present to facilitate the roaming facility in the Union Territories (UTs) of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh to prepaid mobile subscribers. “The Government has decided that the restrictions on prepaid roaming between UTs of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh and the rest of the country shall continue for the time being,” the minister said.