Reliance Jio vs Airtel vs Vodafone-Idea vs BSNL: What's happening in Battleground 5G

Indian telecommunication companies have got new material to fight - 5G. But what about the leading telecom service providers in India? What is the status of 5G network in India?

It took years for the Indian operators to iron out 3G and shift to 4G from older technologies. Pixabay

Indian telecommunication companies have got new material to fight - 5G. It is a buzz word nowadays and for the coming few years, there will be a lot to hear about the buzz in India. The next generation of cellular technology will likely come to India soon. And to make a name for itself in the new competition, many telecom companies have already started their preparations. Qualcomm has also announced the first 5G mobile chipset that will be readily available to consumers in 2019. Even has Mediatek also announced its 5G chip at Mobile World Congress 2019. But what about the leading telecom service providers in India? What is the status of 5G network in India?

Reliance Jio Infocomm is expected to gear up its 5G services launch by the second half of the year 2020. Jio will likely make a plan in order to stop rivals from gaining scale on the 5G front and benefiting from any 5G-led data monetisation. The 5G spectrum auction will likely happen in 2020, according to a report by The Economic Times.

Bharti Airtel is also getting ready for 5G network rollout. It is going to conduct trials of Nokia's fronthaul solution, which can support 4G and 5G services, as per reports.

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Randeep Sekhon, CTO at Bharti Airtel, said in a statement, the upgrade of the network is essential to cater to the booming consumption of mobile broadband services and enable world-class digital services. Nokia is Airtel's longstanding partner and they look forward for their support in journey towards 5G, he added.

British telecom major Vodafone has already completed its first commercial trials in Madrid and Barcelona to connect 5G smartphones with its network in Europe. While for India, Vodafone and its partner Idea wants 5G spectrum auctions to be put off beyond 2020, as according to the duo, there aren’t specific 5G use cases available in the country, and 4G is more than adequate for most customers and Internet of Things (IoT) services in the near term.

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Nokia is likely to launch its first smart phone deployed on the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) premises on March 21, according to a person familiar with the matter.

It took years for the Indian operators to iron out 3G and shift to 4G from older technologies. BSNL is yet to get the department of telecom (DoT) nod for commercially rolling out 4G services even as PM Narendra Modi-led government is eyeing to launch fifth-generation or 5G technology together with matured markets worldwide in 2020.

The government has already invited telecom operators like Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), along with network vendors such as Cisco, Huawei, Samsung, Ericsson and Nokia to undertake 5G-based pilots and showcase India-centric 5G use cases by early 2019. The central government expects commercial 5G services to be launched in 2020.

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