Ericsson expects that significant use cases in the 5G field will emerge in India in the next 12 to 24 months
Swedish vendor Ericsson is currently exploring business opportunities in India’s enterprise market as local carriers seek ways to monetize their 5G networks, Indian news site Moneycontrol reported.
“We are looking at India for our enterprise business. We are looking at what India needs as a market and how our solutions can fit that need. We are working on it, and hopefully, we will see the result in line with the 4G and 5G success stories,” Nunzio Mirtillo, Head of market area South East Asia, Oceania, and India at Ericsson, was quoted as saying.
“Our ambition at the company level is to grow our business over time on the enterprise side while we stay very strong on the network infrastructure…the future depends on how good we are at execution,” he added.
According to the report, the Nordic vendor is helping telecom operators monetize their 5G investments by creating an ecosystem for developers to start using the network’s application programming interface (API) features and develop new use cases and applications.
“Operators have invested in and built the 5G platform. So, now the time is to expose 5G characteristics like quality of service and location-based characteristics, among others, to application developers to make money from it,” he said.
The executive also highlighted that significant use cases will emerge in India in the next 12 to 24 months, which will be chiefly driven by the network slicing capability of 5G technology, helping telcos monetize their investments in the 5G field.
The Ericsson executive highlighted future investments by local carrier Vodafone Idea to deploy 5G infrastructure will help the development of the telecom ecosystem in the Asian nation.
“Vodafone Idea is still waiting to invest…A three-telecommunication operator structure makes much sense in India and is a viable solution. India is a significant market with a huge subscriber base,” he said.
Earlier this year, Vodafone Idea said it would need 6-7 months to roll out 5G services after securing funding, for which discussions with investors were underway. During the company’s earnings call, Vodafone Idea’s CEO, Akshaya Moondra, said that the carrier was talking with vendors about the 5G rollout and developing use cases.
The government of India recently confirmed that the upcoming spectrum auction is slated to start on May 20. In the upcoming auction, 5G airwaves in 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2.1 GHz, 2.3 GHz, 2.5 GHz, 3.3 GHz and 26 GHz bands will be put up for sale.
According to sources with knowledge of the matter, the auction will only draw a few bids from Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea for renewing their frequencies.
The permits of Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea will expire in 2024 in some of India’s geographic circles. Airtel’s airwave renewals this year are in the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz bands in the circles of J&K, Odisha, Bihar, UP-East, West Bengal and Assam. Vodafone Idea faces spectrum renewals in West Bengal (900 MHz and 1800 MHz) and UP-West (900 MHz).
