India to team up with Israel for developing 5G technology

Even the 4G technology has not yet covered all the states of India, the union government is now eyeing the next-generation mobile communication technology, 5G. The governments of India and Israel have agreed to work jointly on the development of the 5G network.

The matter was discussed during the visit of external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv last month. Swaraj and her Israeli counterpart Gilad Erdan in a meeting, agreed that both the countries can cooperate on exploring the possibilities of standard formulation, development and manufacturing in the area of 4G and 5G telecom technologies. It, however, refused to share details about the amount required to be spent for the development of the technology.

No country in the world has 5G technology, while some companies claim to have tested 5G technology, a TRAI report says. There have been some claims by companies, that 5G technology will be in place by 2020. The versions of technology 2G, 3G and 4G are labelled on the basis of internet speed they offer on mobile devices and tablets. Technology experts believe that 5G technology will enable people to have a fibre network, like user experience on a wireless connection.

It can provide speed of 10 GBps per second internet speed, which is 100 times faster than the mobile technology networks used these days. The Indian government has started process to "constitute joint working group", in order to work in the area of 5G. It is even better to see that the central government realises this and is making an effort, so that we do not see the delay that we have seen earlier in technology coming to India.

"Israel has technology and innovation, India has the capital and market. The two areas which emerge out of discussion related to telecom were - reducing roaming charges between India and Israel and exploring the possibilities of standard formulation, research and development, and manufacturing in the area of 4G and 5G," Erdan commented. At present, Indian telecom operators are providing 2G and 3G services for the entire country and 4G services in some parts of India.

This article is authored by Prateek Chakraborty, presently interning with DQ Channels.