Samsung to conduct 5G field trials in Delhi next year

Samsung will conduct 5G field trials in New Delhi in the first half of the next year, and is said to be working closely with the department of Telecommunications.
NEW DELHI: Korean telecom gear maker Samsung will conduct 5G field trial in New Delhi in the first quarter of the next year, and is working closely with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). It will be conducting the trial using the millimeter wave spectrum even as other vendors like Huawei plan to conduct trials in the mid-band.

"We expect to do the trial in the first quarter… it will be in New Delhi...We will also work with many partners on use cases...We don’t expect this trial to be something that will be done in two days... We will set it up and over a period of time different use cases," Srini Sundarajan, Samsung India Senior Vice President and Head (Network Business) said, adding that India will have commercial 5G by 2020.

In India, Samsung is the sole 4G equipment provider for Jio’s pan-India network and is also a technology provider for the telco’s narrowband IoT network which went live in Mumbai earlier this year.

The executive didn't directly reveal the name of its telco for the field trial in India. However, sources said that Jio would be Samsung's telco partner for these field trials.

Asked if Samsung would engage with other telcos for 5G deployment in India, Sundarajan said it is still early to talk about who their partners will be, but Reliance Jio will "always remain the prime partner".

Reliance Jio has previously told ET that it could launch 5G services within 6 months of spectrum auctions in India. The telecom department had previously invited vendors like Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei and Cisco to conduct 5G field trials in the country. The department is expected to provide 100MHz of spectrum for these field trials in the country, along with the backhaul support.

According to Sundarajan, 5G technology -- apart from consumers -- can have various use cases across sectors like healthcare, agriculture, smart cities and surveillance. "...the amount of spectrum operators have will dictate the kind of use cases they can offer...we are already working with telecom operators in the US and Korea for 5G deployment commercially and that the the new-age technology holds huge potential for India for from network and associated devices perspective," he said.

The executive said that Samsung will also work with academia, the 5G forum, and other stakeholders to conduct these trials to identify new use cases in India. “We are taking the lead for these trials,” he said.

He said that India is a big and one of the fastest growing markets for Samsung's networks business.

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