NEW DELHI: Launched with much fanfare by telecom minister
Manoj Sinha and
Ericsson president and CEO
Börje Ekholm last year, Ericsson’s 5G innovation lab has stopped its 5G-related work around technology testing and use cases after its radiating spectrum licence expired.
People familiar with the matter said that Ericsson initially got an approval to use radiating spectrum for three months, which it renewed a couple of times. However, Ericsson was asked to pay commercial fee for the usage of trial spectrum now, hence the company stopped the work at the lab.
“They are now awaiting recommendations of the telecom ministry panel on spectrum for the test run. It will cover both non-radiating and radiating spectrum for 5G trials,” a person privy to the matter told ET.
An Ericsson India spokesperson confirmed the development and said that Ericsson expects the radiating spectrum to be made available soon when the company will restart 5G use case development again.
Ericsson’s rival
Huawei is also looking to establish its own test bed in India in partnership with institutes like IITs. It has started discussions with academia and telcos to set it up to test the technology and identify new use cases.