5G trial for rural broadband has started in India. This test is being done in Ajol village of Gujarat. For testing 5G, a Base Transceiver Station (BTS) was set up 17 km away in Unawa city of Gandhinagar. According to a report by ET Telecom, a team of two private mobile service providers along with officials of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) reached Ajol village to measure the internet speed. They recorded a peak download speed of 105.47 Mbps and an upload speed of 58.77 Mbps.
According to the report, multiple use cases are being tested in the 5G trial in Azol. Cases like virtual reality (VR) connected classrooms, 360-degree virtual reality content playback, and more are being tested. The VR Connected Classroom will directly connect the student to the teacher, even if the two are seated thousands of kilometers apart.
5G immersive gaming with 360-degree digital experience for users is also being tested. According to a tweet by PIB_India Ministry of Communication, a team of senior DoT officials from Gujarat circle along with teams from Nokia and Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL) visited 5G trial sites in rural area of Gandhinagar.
In November, Vodafone Idea (Vi) and Nokia partnered to test 5G in rural India using spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band allocated by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). The third largest telco and Nokia saw peak download speeds of 100+ Mbps, and the testing network area was covering 17.1 km.
Vodafone Idea has already partnered with several companies and upcoming generation startups to test cases using 5G trials. Vi has been able to achieve a maximum download speed of 4.2 Gbps during the 5G triac using mmWave 5G spectrum and upload speeds of over 200 Mbps.
