India's 5G Testbed Successfully Tested, Ashwini Vaishnaw Made First Call

Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday made the first 5G call on a trial network set up at IIT Madras using indigenously-developed telecom gears.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday inaugurated the country's first 5G test-bed, incubated at IIT Madras, to enable startups and industry players to test and validate their products locally and reduce dependence on foreign facilities.

"Aatmanirbhar 5G. Successfully tested 5G call at IIT Madras. Entire end-to-end network is designed and developed in India," Vaishnaw said in a social media post.

The telecom minister, after making a video call on indigenously developed 5G technology gears, said that it is the realisation of the prime minister's vision.

"His (PM's) vision is to have our own 4G, 5G technology stack, developed in India, made in India and made for the world. We have to win the world with this entire technology stack," Vaishnaw said after making the call.

The government expects commercial roll-out of 5G services to start in the country by August-September this year.

At present, telecom companies have been allowed to only conduct trial of 5G services.

The 5G test-bed has been developed as a multi-institute collaborative project by eight institutes led by IIT Madras.

In the absence of a 5G test-bed, startups and other industry players were required to go abroad to test and validate their products for installation in a 5G network.

The other institutes that participated in the project are IIT Delhi, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Bombay, IIT Kanpur, IISc Bangalore, Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering & Research (SAMEER) and Centre of Excellence in Wireless Technology (CEWiT).

The test-bed facility will be available at five locations.