Posted by New Delhi: Vodafone Idea (Vi) and Ericsson have partnered to leverage 5G to transform the healthcare sector in India. Through this partnership, both companies aim to show how 5G connectivity can enable access to healthcare in remote parts of India.
Vi is conducting 5G trail networks on government allocated 3.5 GHz mid-band and 26 GHz mmWave band in Pune. As part of these trails, Vi has set up a 5G trial network by deploying Ericsson radios and dual-mode core based on cloud-native technology of 5G SA, 5G NSA and LTE packet core functions.
Leveraging high data speed, low latency and 5G’s reliability a doctor located in an urban centre can actually carry out an ultrasound scan on a remotely located patient. Vi using Ericsson’s 5G infrastructure is conducting such trials to exhibit 5G’s power to take healthcare to remote parts of the country.
“Vi has developed a 5G ready network which builds on India’s fastest Vi GIGAnet network verified by Ookla. With our 5G trials now, we are leveraging the power of 5G to provide healthcare access to remote parts of the country, amongst a range of other use cases for enterprises and consumers,” said Jagbir Singh, CTO – Vi,
“Speed and latency are critical to 5G services, and therefore, our focus has been to achieve throughputs which can effectively enable relevant 5G use cases for the Digital India of tomorrow,” added Singh.
Vi and Ericsson also demonstrated the Enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) and fixed wireless access (FWA) applications with 5G.
“Enhanced mobile broadband and Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) are expected to be the early use-cases for 5G in India. Over time, we expect more enterprise related use cases to come up leveraging the benefits of 5G in sectors like healthcare, manufacturing, education etc,” said Amarjeet Singh, VP – Ericsson
“The flexible Dual Mode Core set by Ericsson with Vi in Pune is helping enterprises leverage the network to deploy use cases like Remote video monitoring, Telemedicine, Digital twin, AR/VR etc. during the ongoing trials.” added Singh.
Ericsson’s 5G Business Compass report estimates the total 5G-enabled B2B opportunity for Indian operators, across 10 industries, would be $17 billion by 2030. Healthcare, manufacturing, energy and utilities, automotive and public safety are the top industries to leverage 5G for digitalization.