Indian state-owned operator BSNL has contracted Ciena to prepare its network for the introduction of 5G.
BSNL has engaged Ciena to explore providing the vendor's Converged Packet Optical, Packet Networking and Blue Planet Intelligent Automation platforms to provide transport delivery for the operator's 5G trials.
BSNL is working to conduct field trials in urban metro areas with the aim of rolling out 5G by 2020.
The two parties plan to jointly evaluate front haul, mid haul and backhaul transport-based use cases and scenarios to address resiliency requirements and latency concerns tailored to the Indian market.
“5G represents an enormous opportunity in India and BSNL has made a significant step forward to bring this innovation to market,” BSNL chairman and managing director Shri Anupam Shrivastava said.
“We expect that these trials will show the true benefit of 5G which promises to deliver speeds of up to 20Gbps, as much as 30 times faster than 4G.”
BSNL operates pan-India mobile services in every telecom circle apart from Mumbai and Delhi, which are the domain of fellow-state owned operator MTNL.