Samsung and 5G in India

 During the time when 4G was being set up in India, Samsung partnered with Jio. With Jio building its own indigenous 5G technology, partly in-house and partly in collaboration with various others Samsung has moved on to Vodafone-Idea. It is in talks with Airtel to supply equipment and build the 5G network.  

While the 4G network was being set-up, the Chinese accounted for a total of 20% in the market. They supplied equipment to Airtel and Vodafone Idea sharing the two telco circles with Ericsson and Nokia. But now the Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE are excluded from participating in the 5G roll out. There is a significant vacuum in the market because of this that has to be filled by three vendors Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung. 

With the 5G auction in progress, the telecommunication companies are trying to prepare themselves to have the 5G network run successfully. These companies are trying to develop their own 5g indigenous open radio access network (O-RAN) in collaboration with other players. This move is being encouraged by the government as part of Atmanirbhar Bharat. Though the companies are trying to build their own technology, they are still a work in progress and it is a process which will take time and its launch will only be decided by 2023-24.

Airtel has tied up with Tata Consultancy Services to build the equipment to an extent. It has also tied up with other global players such as Mavenir for O-RAN and NEC for MIMO cells. Reliance Jio has started talks with Ericsson for the first time for buying 5G equipment beyond what is available from Samsung.