Ericsson to invest in India's 5G requirements under PLI scheme

Ericsson is investing in India under the production-linked incentives or PLI scheme for telecom to enhance its production capabilities and to prepare for deliveries to its Indian customers for 4G and 5G requirements.

Nitin Bansal, Head of Ericsson India and Head of Network Solutions for South east Asia, Oceania and India, Ericsson, said, “We making the technology available relevant for India and making sure that we are covering all the requirements that will come in India and also preparing ourselves for production and delivery out of India.”

Bansal said that Ericsson’s production facility in Pune through its contract manufacturing partner, Jabil, is scalable and expandable as per the requirements of local and global markets. “We need to build the capabilities.”

He said that Indian telecom operators are also making investments to be prepared for the 5G technology and are preparing for spectrum auctions. He also added, “There will be investments from other enterprises who want to adopt 5G services and also from those who are developing. The use cases across consumer and enterprise. So yes, everyone is investing in their own area of expertise. The industry and technology are continuously evolving and we all need to invest to keep pace with it.

The Indian government expected to conduct a 5G spectrum auction in April-May period of 2022.

The company kicked off the critical process of setting starting prices of 10 spectrum bands earmarked by the government for offering 5G services, including for 600 Mhz and the millimeter wave frequencies, to be auctioned in April-May 2022. Ericsson recently received the trusted sources approval along with Nokia, Cisco and Tejas from India’s National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS). However, these companies are yet to receive trusted products approval, which is required for telcos to place new purchase orders for their 4G and 5G related deployments.