Bharti Airtel Deploys India's First Private 5G Network Trial At Bosch Facility

The trial comes ahead of a 5G spectrum auction this month and amid a battle among telecom and IT companies on spectrum allotment for private networks

Airtel said that it has implemented two industrial grade use cases for quality improvement and operational efficiency at Bosch's manufacturing facility, utilising the trial spectrum.

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Bharti Airtel, India's biggest telecom operator, on Friday announced that it has successfully completed a trial of the country’s first 5G private network at Bosch Automotive Electronics India (RBAI) facility in Bengaluru, IANS reported.

The trial comes ahead of a 5G spectrum auction this month and amid a battle among telecom and IT companies on spectrum allotment for private networks. The on-premise 5G Captive Private Network was built over the trial 5G spectrum allocated by the Department of Telecom (DoT).

According to the report, Airtel said that it has implemented two industrial grade use cases for quality improvement and operational efficiency at Bosch's manufacturing facility, utilising the trial spectrum. In both the cases, 5G technology such as mobile broadband and ultra reliable low latency communications drove automated operations ensuring faster scale up and reduced downtimes.

Ajay Chitkara, director and CEO, Airtel Business, said, "We believe that Airtel has the world-class infrastructure, partnerships and expertise to deliver Captive Private Network Solution in any part of the country and to enterprises of any size." 

The DoT has released a notice inviting applications (NIA) for the auction of spectrum in 600, 700, 800, 900, 1800, 2100, 2300, 2500, 3300 MHz, and 26GHz bands.

The NIA provides explicit clarity on the subject of Captive Non-Public Networks (CNPN). The private network set up on trial spectrum at the Bosch facility has the capability to manage thousands of connected devices along with delivering multi- GBPS throughput, the telco said.

"The low latency and reliable connectivity provided by the Airtel Private 5G network at our facility which was experienced during the proof of concept is enabling us to enhance our efficiency and our productivity," said Subhash P., head of technical functions, Bosch Automotive Electronics India.

Last year, Airtel successfully demonstrated India's first 5G experience over a live 4G network in Hyderabad. It has also demonstrated India's first rural 5G trial as well as the first cloud gaming experience on 5G.

The Broadband India Forum (BIF), on the other hand, on Friday said the choice of service provider for captive private 5G networks must lie with the enterprises. "The enterprises would have to make do with whatever is offered by the telecom service providers (TSPs), whether satisfactory or not," said BIF President T V Ramachandran.