BSNL and Coriant enter MoU that lays the foundation for future 5G deployments in India
India telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) entered a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with U.S.-based networking solutions provider Coriant yesterday in an effort to bring 5G and the internet of things (IoT) to the South Asian country. Under terms of the MoU, the companies will work to hasten service innovation leveraging 5G, IoT, software-defined networking (SDN), network functions virtualization (NFV) and mobile edge computing (MEC) technologies, according to a company press release.
“We continue to focus on bringing our customers across India the latest innovations in communications technologies that enrich their personal and work lives,” said Shri Anupam Shrivastava, CMD BSNL, in a statement. “5G represents an enormous leap forward in capacity and throughput speeds, and we are pleased to team with our long-term technology partner Coriant to tap into these capabilities and explore real-world use cases for next-generation services and applications.”
Telecom operators in other countries have started to develop 5G technologies with a commercialization date set for 2020. Although, the agreement between to the two companies is on a noncommercial basis.
According to the agreement, BSNL and Coraint will collaborate to develop use cases for rural connectivity, connected healthcare, industrial automation, public safety, video surveillance, energy and agriculture. The partnership also includes research programs, knowledge sharing and workshops centered on network trends and hyper-scale architectures made to deliver 5G services quickly.
“BSNL’s vision aligns nicely with our strategy of driving innovation in purpose-built 5G solutions and architectures,” said CEO and Chairman of Coriant Shaygan Kheradpir. “We look forward to our joint work and the opportunity to help BSNL fast track development toward a 5G and IoT future and bring the value of these technologies to India and its citizens.”
Coriant isn’t the only U.S.-based company teaming up with BSNL to bring 5G to India. In March, for example, Nokia signed onto a parallel agreement with BSNL to help the company transform its existing networks into 5G. BSNL expects to commence field trials of 5G services by March 2018.
