Ericsson has today announced that it has teamed up with state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited to work together on developing 5G services and applications. The company has signed a MoU with BSNL which will leverage Ericsson’s 5G Center of Excellence in Delhi to work on rural connectivity, connected healthcare, industrial automation, public safety, video surveillance, energy and agriculture.
Ericsson has already started working on 5G technologies and earlier revealed live demonstration of speeds as high as 5.7GBPS with an ultra-low Latency of 3ms. In addition to BSNL, Ericsson is working closely with telecom operators as well as industry and academia to create a strong 5G ecosystem to enable innovation for new use cases, and business models. To fast-track 5G deployments in the country, Ericsson set up a Center of Excellence and Innovation Lab for 5G at the IIT Delhi, earlier this year.
Speaking about the announcement, Ericsson India Head, Nunzio Mirtillo said “We are proud to partner with BSNL to work on use-cases and scenarios for application of 5G technology and how it will help realize the Digital India vision. Ericsson has been a key part of the telecom ecosystem in India for several decades, bringing voice and data services to millions of customers in the country. As networks evolve towards 5G, we have the products and solutions as well as the expertise to help operators evolve seamlessly from 4G to 5G”.
BSNL’s CMD, Anupam Shrivastava also commented by saying “5G and IoT will enable new opportunities and create new ecosystems and through this association with Ericsson, we intend to take the lead in the development of these new technologies. We will test, learn and develop use cases that will help us meet the diverse needs of our customers in the future. 5G will also help create the backbone on which Digital India initiatives will be delivered”.