On July 9, a technical working group of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) approved an application for recognition of the 5G Radio Interface Technology (RIT) submitted by Telecom Standards Development Society, India (TSDSI) as a candidate 5G standard, along with the RIT submitted by 3GPP. TSDSI is an autonomous Indian standards setting body, comprising industry and academia recognised by the DoT.

The highlight of the TSDSI RIT is that it improves upon the 3GPP RIT to bridge the digital divide, by providing enhanced performance for ITU’s Low Mobility Large Cell (LMLC) rural use case. This enhanced RIT incorporating patented innovations of Indian researchers is otherwise fully compatible with the 3GPP RIT in every respect. India’s relatively late but vital contribution towards under-served populations has cleared hurdles to acceptance as a global 5G standard.

The TSDSI RIT is designed to make 5G technology work well in rural areas with low-speed mobility and large cells of up to 6 km radius. It primarily seeks to bridge the digital divide by enabling affordable 5G broadband through indigenous technology, leveraging India’s rural optical fibre network BharatNet. This brings 95% of India’s villages into the coverage regions of base stations deployed at gram panchayats (GPs) served by BharatNet. The LMLC requirement mandated by ITU is only a 3 km coverage radius, insufficient for India’s rural areas and those of many other countries. The higher coverage is achieved with minimal but innovative enhancements to the 3GPP specifications, at negligible additional cost.

TSDSI initially approached 3GPP with its proposals, but found opposition in global telecom majors for varying reasons including paucity of global interest in enhanced rural coverage of the kind required in India. Despite persistent pressure from Indian entities, only a poor subset of its proposals was incorporated into their specifications merely as an optional feature, leaving over 33% of India’s villages unreachable from towers located at the GPs. Dissatisfied, the TSDSI working groups focussed on re-incorporating the necessary technology enhancements that would work seamlessly with the specifications developed by 3GPP, instead of simply settling for the best rural fit from what is available on the global shelf.

Indigenous technology development in India often encounters scepticism about our technical capacity and lack of global scale and volume. TSDSI’s efforts are no exception. There have been concerns around India’s “unilateral” standard setting degrading interoperability with the global 3GPP standard, undermining consumer choice, delaying rollout of 5G in India and increasing cost due to the two technology variants demanding separate hardware. Inclusive stakeholder consultations have been advocated, to avoid a “fragmented” 5G technology isolating India from global value chains.

These concerns do not account for TSDSI’s collegial pursuit of solutions relevant to India’s needs in harmony with global standards. We should not get diverted by specious arguments from those that may benefit from India not having its 5G technology variant.

The familiarity of all major telecom manufacturers with the technical specifications made by TSDSI should enable quick development of solutions, ensuring total interoperability between equipment conforming to both TSDSI and 3GPP RITs at negligible extra cost as it only requires a modest one-time software/ firmware change in the base station and the handset. The indigenous TSDSI 5G standard would also provide opportunities for Indian companies to design innovative solutions for extended 5G applications not only for India but also for the world.

The TSDSI 5G RIT has been through rigorous domestic and international evaluation processes, and meets a critical Indian need without compromising global interoperability or adding cost. It will fulfil the unmet need of unconnected people in India and other developing countries. It neither islands our market or country, nor takes it down a technology fork that arrests future evolution of wireless technologies in step with the rest of the world.

It is a well-formulated and harmonious response to the pressing developmental needs of a very large number of consumers, who unfortunately often escape global attention. Indeed, it is our fervent hope that, sooner rather than later, the enhancements proposed in the TSDSI RIT will get folded into the 3GPP RIT (as originally intended by India) and a single global standard will address everyone’s needs, including those on the wrong side of the digital divide.