Manish Vyas, the CEO of Indian tech major Tech Mahindra’s network services division, says that the company in an advanced stage of sharing technology with ITI Limited, the central Government-owned manufacturer of telecommunications equipment in India. The technology will equip ITI to make 4G and 5G equipment in a few months. It was in last June Tech Mahindra signed an agreement with ITI Limited for development of 4G and 5G technologies.

“We are in the stages of exchanging design, starting to plan and also doing a couple of test runs and trials based on the technology that they are looking to manufacture. Pretty advanced stages, it's not something that will take years but months for them to start doing it and of course, it depends on how quickly they start winning business in this area,” Vyas told PTI.

As per the government rule, ITI is eligible for its quota to manufacture equipment that will power the infrastructure of public sector telcos like BSNL and MTNL, in addition to its Rs.7,796 crore worth contract to build communication networks for the Defence sector. “We are going to be helping them with the reference design with the transfer of technology that will enable them to put together the process and the plans to start manufacturing the radio units which are very specific to both 4G and 5G going forward, to an architecture which is an open source, open radio access network-based architecture,” Vyas added.

While India is fast-tracking its efforts to launch 5G sooner, globally, the commercial 5G networks have been deployed in 378 cities across 34 countries. The countries that have already started 5G rollout include South Korea, China, Germany, UK, and the US. South Korea leads the race of deployment, making 5G networks available in around 80 cities, followed by China, which has rolled out in more than 50 cities.