Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL), the new merged entity of Vodafone and Idea Cellular, has now confirmed that 5G transition for the telco will only be a software update. The company says seamless transition will happen once it acquires the 5G spectrum and combines it with the right ecosystem in the country.
In an interview with Economic Times, Vishant Vora, the Chief Technology Officer of VIL, said the company is developing its 4G network on the basis of elements of 5G. The 5G architecture is said to be complete with cloud, MIMO, software-defined networking (SDN) and networks functions virtualization. Vora also added that the company is focused on building the transport network and will allow for transition from 4G to 5G network.
He revealed that Vodafone Idea has merged the elements of 5G deeply in its existing network and added that the work is paving way for 5G deployment in India. He claims that the use of such an integration allows the company to offer a network that is 4.9G rather than 4G in the country. However, most consumers would beg to differ from Vora in this regard due to lower download speed and unreliable network.
Among technological developments, Vora said that Vodafone Idea’s cloudification of the system remains one of the highest in the world. He also confirmed that more than 60 percent of all traffic is currently running on cloud core. VIL also working on IPfication of the network as it aims to build the transport network.
In cities like Delhi, Pune, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad, VIL CTO said the company is deploying massive MIMO and it intends to reform the 2,600MHz spectrum for use in 5G. Vora also addressed the key question related to latency and said the company puts a lot of emphasis on the latency and adds that its corporate clients found the lowest latency rate.
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He also spoke about working with Airtel with the name of Firefly to deploy WiFi access in airports. Vora also spoke about cloud and digitization of Vodafone Idea and said that SDN is a big part of its upcoming plans and will simplify data center architectures. He confirmed that Vodafone Idea Limited will work to remain leader in the M2M category.
