IT Minister makes first 5G test call from trial network successfully
The entire end-to-end network is designed and developed in India.
Union Minister of Communications, Electronics & Information Technology and Railway, Ashwini Vaishnaw successfully made India’s first 5G call from IIT Madras on Thursday using an indigenously developed telecom setup. The test bed was inaugurated by PM Modi on Tuesday.
The test bed has been developed as a collaborative project by eight different institutes led by IIT Madras. The other institutes are IITs from Delhi, Hyderabad, Bombay and Kanpur, IISc Bangalore, Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering & Research (SAMEER) and the Centre of Excellence in Wireless Technology (CEWiT). The project was set up at a cost of approximately Rs. 220 crores.
Vaishnaw said “Aatmanirbhar 5G. Successfully tested 5G call at IIT Madras. The entire end-to-end network is designed and developed in India.” He added, “Our PM’s vision is to have our own 4G, 5G technology stack, developed in India, made in India and made for the world. We have to win the world with this entire technology stack.”
As of now, Telecom companies have been given clearance only to conduct 5G trials for which they had to travel abroad in order to test and validate their products for installation in a 5G network but with the current development, these tests can now be done locally at 5 different locations.
PD Vaghela, Chairman of Trai said that digital technology is changing service delivery in education, healthcare, agriculture, energy, and other sectors. In this context, he called for an enabling, collaborative approach among various sectors for framing policies and regulations.
The government has planned for a commercial roll-out of 5G services to start latest by August-September this year. Thereafter, India also aims to expand its scope of the telecom industry to a 6G network in the future.
