by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
War on Acquiring 5G Technology
Spectrum auction worth Rs 5.60 lakh crores goes for a Toss
Harish Gupta
New Delhi, Oct 7
India is on horns of a dilemma in acquiring commercial fifth-generation (5G) technology network as global war seem to have broken out. The war has led to the huge delay in deploying 5G technology and auctioning of 5G spectrum capable of fetching Rs 5.60 lakh crores. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has left the decision to acquire technology and date of auctioning at the discretion of the political leadership.
While the USA is pitching for its “most trusted and secure technology”,the Chinese have mounted huge pressure not to dump Huawei. The Chinese gear maker which penetrated deep inside India through its 2G, 3G & 4G networks for decades, has now threatened that it won't invest more if it was denied 5G permission. In order to add fuel to the fire, Sunil Bharati Mittal of Airtel has openly advocated bringing Huawei in 5G. Jay Chen, CEO of Huawei in India, put further pressure saying, his company invested over $3.5 billion in India till date and will be forced not to invest.The Finnish equipment maker Nokia is very much in the race too.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is yet to come out with a road map for field trials even as the 100-day deadline — announced in June this year for the start of 5G trials — has passed. On June 3, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said his priority would be to initiate 5G trials within 100 days. But the high-level committee on 5G headed by Principal scientific adviser K Vijay Raghavan said on June 13 came out with a shocker. It said, India should “go for (5G) trials immediately with all, except for Chinese vendors”. Since then, the issue is in cold storage.
The issue cropped up between India and the US when PM modi met US officials and President Trump. Later, a high-level delegation visited New Delhi led by Robert Strayer, deputy assistant secretary of state for Cyber and International communication and Information Policy. He met top Indian officials and wanted it to work with “Trusted sources”. Now the Chinese President is visiting India from Friday and the issue is bound to crop up during the one-to-one talks with PM Modi.
Ends
