India makes its maiden entry into 5G standards, pisses off big telecoms

As the 5G standards window closes in, India has added a feature to it. International vendors like Ericsson, Nokia, Qualcomm are worried. If India continues on this path, it could become a threat to their cosy club which lords telecoms patents

After years of effort, India has added a feature to 5G standards: large cell, low mobility. A typical Indian requirement for high-speed broadband with low mobility

In numerous international meetings, vendors negotiated down the essential features of LMLC. Why? Nobody wants to redo their products and build solutions for countries like India

Still, India managed to get into the optional list of 5G standards to be rolled later this year. It works with 4G/LTE and 5G gears

India will make it mandatory; vendors will eventually come around to it. But will this spur local telecoms product development?

For the last three years, Kiran Kumar Kuchi has been travelling to the global telecoms standards meetings with resolute regularity. A trip every month. To the high-stakes 5G standards being drafted during the time, Kuchi and his colleagues from the Indian Institutes of Technology wanted to add a typically Indian requirement. But the stiff negotiations at the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), driven by big telecoms gear makers, made sure India was stifled. It had no telecoms company, and hence no seat at the table. No voice.

Meeting after meeting, India was outvoted.

AUTHOR

Seema Singh

Seema has over two decades of experience in journalism. Before starting The Ken, Seema wrote “Myth Breaker: Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and the Story of Indian Biotech”, published by HarperCollins in May 2016. Prior to that, she was a senior editor and bureau chief for Bangalore with Forbes India, and before that she wrote for Mint. Seema has written for numerous international publications like IEEE-Spectrum, New Scientist, Cell and Newsweek. Seema is a Knight Science Journalism Fellow from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a MacArthur Foundation Research Grantee.

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