BSNL to start field trials of 5G services by end of March 2018

BSNL's chairman and MD Anupam Shrivastava on Wednesday said that the company is aiming to begin field trials of its 5G services by end of this financial year. The state-run telecom operator is also in talks with Larsen & Toubro and HP for end devices for deploying 5G services, he added.

"We had interaction with Nokia last week (on 5G). Next we are going to present about our requirements after which field trail concept is there. It should start before the end of this financial year," Shrivastava told reporters today.

He was speaking on the sidelines of signing its knowledge sharing agreement on 5G technology with network firm Coriant. Under the terms of the agreement, Coriant and BSNL will cooperate to accelerate network architecture and service innovation for 5G services.

"This (MoU with Coriant) is only knowledge sharing agreement. There are no commercials involved. We are at nascent stage. By this agreement, we will get to know more about 5G through this and other agreements," Shrivastava said.

He said the speed of the 5G is going to be much faster than 4G and it will use same 4G and 3G network but with optimised network.

"Latency is going to be in 5G technology which is time taken by data to reach one point to other. 5G ecosystem will be developed based on used cases which will differ from country to country. Like smart car parking may not be a priority for India but it e-health, waste management can be used case of India," Shrivastava said.

He said that BSNL owns largest optical fibre network, which can provide highest data speed, in the country to the tune of over 7 lakh kilometer.

Coriant Chairman and CEO Shaygan Kheradpir said that the company will share its experiences on 5G technology with BSNL specially on network design.

"The data speed in 5G should be able to support real time computing speed like in case of autonomous cars where sensors have to immediately learn about traffic. We will share our experience in designing network for transmitting data from wireless towers to where computing is taking place and back to the network," Kheradpir said.