The Finance Minister has announced that the Department of Telecom will set up a development centre to work on 5G technologies in partnership with IIT, Chennai. 5G technology is still being standardised globally and India has the opportunity to take the lead in the development of this technology. 5G will enable applications such as Internet of Things and Machine-to-Machine internet.

However, the Centre had earlier tried to set up such centres in India for technologies such as Wi-Max. This initiative did not take off. It is yet to be seen how the DoT will execute the setting up of the new centre and if it will be able to attract quality engineers and researchers to work on 5G technologies.

Action has already begun in 5G technology in educational institutions with Ericsson and IIT Delhi signing an MoU to jointly roll out a ‘5G for India’ programme. Ericsson will set up a Center of Excellence with a 5G test bed and incubation center at IIT Delhi and use this facility to drive development of the country’s 5G ecosystem. In addition to hosting the Center of Excellence, IIT Delhi will conduct research and development to explore how some of the country’s challenges can be addressed with mobile technologies.

The Cellular Operators' Association of India website said 5G is not only about handling existing systems more efficiently but also catering to new possibilities and to use cases, many of which are yet not known. It is envisaged that 5G will cater to scalability and adaptability across extreme variations in consumer requirements.

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