India will bar Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp from its 5G trial plans on the grounds of “defense of India on matters directly or indirectly related including national security.” The country will invoke investment rules passed in July which bar companies from bordering countries from bidding for sensitive projects like the 5G trials when there are concerns of national security.
The news come a month after the UK ordered its companies to remove all Huawei 5G equipment from their network.
Bloomberg reports that a decision on whether the country will ban Huawei will come within two weeks, awaiting approval from the Prime Minister.
India’s action against Huawei reflects the growing tensions between the two countries after the country banned TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps on the grounds of national security.
India’s Ministry of communication will resume discussions of approving 5G trials by private companies like Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone.
Reliance Could Lead India’s 5G Efforts
Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio could be India’s saving grace for the fifth-generation network following its earlier announcement that it had developed 5G technologies for its home country and other markets.
“This Made-in-India solution will be ready for 5G trials as soon as 5G spectrum is available and can be ready for field deployment next year,” Ambani earlier said.
However, that will come with a set of challenges. International Data Corp estimates that companies will need to invest at least $4 billion to set up network infrastructure. Further, Indian telecoms rely heavily on Chinese equipment for preexisting fourth-generation networks, a dependency which could inflate costs of transitioning to 5G by up to 35%. The price tag is likely to lock out players in the telecom space.
Nevertheless, Ambani believes that his Telco has a headstart as it does not have to switch equipment. Economic Times says Reliance will embrace Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) or possibly cloud computing-based architecture (C-RAN) to run its 5G network, avoiding high costs of equipment.
