(Gagandeep Kaur is a New Delhi-based independent telecom journalist. This column first appeared in Economic Times on June 29, 2021)
- The year 2020 was a momentous one for the Indian telecom industry, with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) approving the country’s homegrown standards, called 5Gi for the first time. Even so, there seems to be a tug of war between the Indian telcos and the government regarding the adoption of these standards. On the one hand, the service providers have raised concerns regarding interoperability and increase in network deployment cost if they go for 5Gi standards. On the other hand, the technology developers say that deployment requires only minor software changes. 5Gi standards were developed by the Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) under the aegis of Telecommunications Standards Development Society of India (TSDSI). Its feature, Low Mobility Large Cell (LMLC), helps enhance the signal transmission range of a base station which can help the service providers expand coverage several times over when compares with the current distance covered. This innovation is designed to enable the telcos to cost-effectively expand 5G coverage in rural and remote areas…