Indian smartphone makers are worried about 5Gi becoming the norm of connectivity in the country. According to the smartphone manufacturers, 5Gi would render all the gains that the companies have made so far useless. According to an ET Telecom report, the entire mobile industry will be affected severely if 5Gi is made the standard mode of connectivity in India. Further, it would harm the initiatives of the government to motivate companies to manufacture within India.
Indian Telcos Have Expressed Concerns Over 5Gi As Well
The Indian Telecom operators have also shared their concern over the use of the 5Gi standard developed by the TSDSI over the 5G standard of 3GPP. The main concern is the rise in costs of smartphones, services, and most importantly, isolation from the global standards. If India goes ahead with the 5Gi technology, the smartphone makers will have to change a few things in the manufacturing process to suit the needs of 5Gi. Thus, they will have to specially manufacture for the Indian market. The smartphone companies won’t be able to export the 5Gi supportive smartphones out of the Indian market because the rest of the world will be using the 5G standard developed by the 3GPP. This will increase the costs of the smartphone in India by a huge margin. Further, when Indians go to other countries where the 5G networks support the 3GPP 5G standard, it would cause issues with connectivity. The operators have including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, and other foreign vendors have expressed their fear of making the 5Gi standard the norm in India. 5Gi is a risky technology and should not be adopted if it doesn’t have any clear advantage over the 5G standard developed by the 3GPP. The good thing is there is still a lot of time left before live commercial 5G networks arrive in India and until then, the government can decide which standard is better for the country.
