In-depth: What lies ahead for India’s 5Gi?

The year 2020 was a momentous one for the Indian telecom industry, with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) approving the country’s homegrown standards, called 5Gi for the first time.

Even so, there seems to be a tug of war between the Indian telcos and the government regarding the adoption of these standards. On the one hand, the service providers have raised concerns regarding interoperability and increase in network deployment cost if they go for 5Gi standards. On the other hand, the technology developers say that deployment requires only minor software changes.