5G technology roadmap: India wants to take a lead position in adopting 5G technology and will prepare the roadmap for it by June, Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said today. She called upon industry, academia and startups to do their bit to help India become a "frontrunner" in the 5th-generation wireless system which enables higher speed mobile broadband, mission-critical services and massive Internet of Things (IoT) deployment. Terming 5G as important for India's massive "digitisation and digitalisation" efforts, Sundararajan said it would enable the country to overcome several decades of infrastructure-related challenges.

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"A high-level forum on 5G which includes global experts, industry experts, IITs, IISc, has already commenced work and done a fair amount of deliberation. By June, India will have full roadmap ready on this," she said. The forum is deliberating on the vision, goals, and 5G roadmap and will also look at related areas of spectrum policy, regulatory regime and pilot programmes, she added.

Sundararajan, who was speaking at an event organised by industry body Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI), said that 5G will unleash transformative capabilities, and have a bearing in areas like network virtualisation, cloud, and data analytics amongst others. "I wonder whether we are correct in calling 5G as next generation. It represents next order of capabilities. The capabilities that it will unleash, are transformative," she said.

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Sundararajan said that while the country had lagged in 2G, 3G and 4G technology adoption, it does not want to left behind in 5G and, in fact, would like to push the global momentum around 5G through design capabilities, innovation and ability to build affordable solutions.