Govt constitutes high-level committee on 5G

The Government has constituted the high-level 5G committee with a mandate to lay down a roadmap for a rollout of the technology by 2020.

"We have created a high-level 5G committee that will work on vision mission and goals of 5G. When the world will roll out 5G in 2020, I believe India will be on a par with them," Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said.

He said that " The primary goals of the forum are to achieve early deployment of 5G in India and a globally competitive product development and manufacturing ecosystem targeting 50 percent of India market and 10 percent of the global market over next five to seven years."

The high-level forum will be comprised of secretaries of ministries of communications, information technology, and science & technology.

For India, 5G provides an opportunity for the industry to reach out to global markets, and consumers to gain with the economies of scale. Worldwide countries have launched similar Forums and thus, India has joined the race in 5G technologies. We are open for collaboration with them, telecom ministry said.

The forum will also focus on research ecosystem - for IPR development, standards development and proof of concepts through research projects, PPP projects, testbeds and pilot roll-outs, regulatory framework - including spectrum assignments and a start-up friendly regulatory environment to enable leap-frog and embracing of innovative technologies and inclusive business environment - with special focus on investment incentives favourable to start-ups and innovators and enablement of Venture capitalists.

A vibrant eco-system of research built around 5G that encompasses Industry, Government and Academia will further strengthen the MAKE (& DESIGN) in INDIA initiatives to enable design and manufacture of 5G technologies, products, and solutions in India, 5G start-ups that enable this design and manufacturing capabilities, Generation of IPR backing the above designs, India based companies should have some essential IPR in the 5G standard, Manufacture of 5G chipsets, this may require massive investments, appropriate testbeds, and technology platforms to enable and help Indian technical ecosystem to have an edge in 5G and accelerated deployment of next-generation ubiquitous ultra-high broadband infrastructure with 100 percent coverage of 10 Gbps across urban India and 1 Gbps across rural India.