Telecom gear maker HFCL Limited on October 2 announced the launch of its 5G Lab-as-a-Service in a bid to accelerate the rollout of 5G solutions and services.
For the implementation of 5G for consumer, enterprise and industry verticals it is important to support multiple frequency bands (sub-6 GHz, millimeter wave).
HFCL's 5G Lab-as-a-service aims at solving some of the challenges in the implementation of the 5G infrastructure. The 5G Lab provides a 'sandbox' for rapid prototyping of 5G use cases addressing the needs of various industry segments that include manufacturing, transportation, healthcare and retail, the company said in a statement.
To ensure the penetration of the 5G infrastructure into rural India via mobile broadband service, the 5G Lab will help creating pre-integrated and pre-validated 5G solutions for Low Mobility Large Cell (LMLC).
Mahendra Nahata, Managing Director at HFCL emphasized the need for a 5G lab for optimizing various facets of the 5G infrastructure for smoothly rolling out 5G services.
“Integration of multi vendor, multi-technology systems is complex, and requires validation and optimization of disaggregated components such as hardware, software, cloud and network functions for seamless deployment of 5G networks", Nahata said.
The 5G lab is equipped with a multi-vendor 5G network and tools such as signal analyzer and signal generator for RF conformance tests, O-RAN studio, PTP conformance test equipment and anechoic chamber. HFCL has also built a test platform for automated lab validation, field deployment, and service automation, the statement said.
HFCL's 5G Labs will also have skilled teams with expertise in 5G networks and devices including expertise in DevOps, CI/CD, Kubernetes, and cloud native technologies that is needed for testing in 5G environments.
The launch comes soon after Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced the government's initiative to setup 100 labs for research in 5G technology. The participants of the Indian Mobile Congress have been asked to provide inputs for the new telecom bill. The government aims to simplify licensing of the 5G frequency.
"We are going to set up 100 SG labs across the country. I request the telecom industry to come together and convert atleast 12 of these 100 labs into telecom incubators to train students and do experiments.", Vaishnaw said.