NEW DELHI: The government has told telecom operators and smartphone makers to give weekly or bi-weekly status updates on their 5G<\/a> network rollouts and how many devices have onboarded the network as it looks to track and speed up the uptake of the next generation services in the country.
As per officials aware of the matter, the directive on updates was given during a meeting with telecom operators and smartphone manufacturers on Wednesday, which was chaired by electronics & information technology secretary Alkesh Kumar Sharma. Telecom secretary K Rajaraman did not attend the meeting due to ill health.
“Telecom operators need to inform about addition of 5G sites while smartphone makers have to give a list of models supporting 5G,” one of the officials told ET. The official further said most of the smartphone makers, including Samsung<\/a> and Apple<\/a>, have assured the government that they will be expediting software updates on devices for 5G.
In separate statements Wednesday, Apple said it will push through the updates in December, while Samsung put the timeline at mid-November.
Wednesday’s meeting was attended by representatives from smartphone brands including Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi<\/a>, HMD Global, Transsion, Lava, Karbonn, Realme, Micromax, Motorola, Oppo<\/a>, OnePlus and Vivo. Representatives from the India Cellular and Electronics Association, Qualcomm, UTL Neolync, along with the operators including Bharti Airtel<\/a>, Reliance Jio<\/a> and Vodafone Idea<\/a> were also part of the deliberations.
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The meeting came after consumer feedback that despite some telcos saying that 5G services were available in some cities, subscribers are not able to avail of 5G connectivity. While telcos say they are calibrating the rollout of 5G sites due to lack of a device ecosystem with only 8-9% of all devices supporting 5G, some smartphone makers say they haven’t offered support as they are still testing for performance quality and battery life, since networks are still patchy.
The main points of concern for the government have been around the 5G support for Apple and Samsung devices, said officials.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the launch of 5G services in India on October 1. On the same day, Airtel<\/a> announced launch of services in eight cities including Delhi and Mumbai, while Reliance<\/a> Jio launched beta trial services in four cities on October 4, including the three metro cities and Varanasi on an invite only basis.
Majority of devices from Chinese handset brands like Xiaomi, Realme, Oppo and Vivo, however, have already enabled 5G support on Airtel's network across their portfolio of 5G smartphones launched since 2020.
In a statement, iPhone-maker Apple said it will provide the software update to support 5G services in India in December. \"We are working with our carrier partners in India to bring the best 5G experience to iPhone users as soon as network validation and testing for quality and performance is completed. 5G will be enabled via a software update and will start rolling out to iPhone users in December,\" Apple said.
The government wants the update to be rolled out before December. As per officials in the telecom industry<\/a>, Apple is in the final stages of testing devices with Bharti Airtel<\/a>’s non-standalone and Reliance Jio’s standalone networks and is working to push out the software updates earlier, possibly in November.
Apple is presently testing the 5G-enabled iPhones that includes the iPhone 12, iPhone 13, and iPhone 14 series along with the iPhone SE (3rd Generation) on the carriers that have gone live with 5G services in the country. Since only Airtel and Reliance Jio have launched 5G services so far, the Cupertino-based major will likely have to do another round of testing with cash-strapped Vodafone Idea’s 5G network when it is switched on. Apple has around 3% market share in the country’s smartphone market by volume, and 11% by revenue share, as per Counterpoint Research data.
Korean major Samsung too is working fast to bring out the software update on most of the devices at the earliest.
“In India, Samsung has the widest portfolio of 5G devices. We are working closely with our operator partners and are committed to rolling out OTA (over-the-air) updates across all our 5G devices by mid-November 2022, enabling Indian consumers to experience 5G seamlessly,\" said a Samsung India<\/a> spokesperson. Samsung is India’s number 2 smartphone brand, with 19% volume share.
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