Government offers 5G test beds to startups and MSMEs till January 2024

By OEM Update Editorial April 18, 2023 2:10 pm IST

Test Bed provides the Indigenous capability for testing and validating 5G products being developed and manufactured by Indian start-ups, MSME, R&D, Academia and industry users. 
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) under the Ministry of Communications is now offering free usage of the 5G Test Bed to Start-ups and MSMEs recognised by the Government of India until January 2024. All 5G stakeholders, including industry, academia, service providers, R&D institutions, government bodies, and equipment manufacturers, can use facility at a nominal rate. This move aims to encourage use of the Test Bed and promote the development of indigenous technologies and products, in line with the ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ vision. Several start-ups and companies are already utilising Test Bed for testing their products and services.
The 5G Test Bed is available at five locations, including the Integrated Test Bed at CEWiT/IIT Madras and other test beds at IIT Delhi, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Kanpur, and IISc Bangalore. CEWiT/IIT Madras offers an end-to-end Test Bed with various testing services for RAN Level, PHY Level, and other test equipment. IIT Hyderabad has gNB Testing, UE Testing, end-to-end interoperability testing, and NB-IoT testing facilities. At the same time, IISC Bangalore hosts the V2X and 5G open-source test bed, IIT Kanpur hosts the base-band Test Bed, and IIT Delhi hosts the NB-IoT and VLC Test Bed.
The Indigenous 5G Test Bed complies with the global 3GPP and ORAN standards. It provides an open 5G Test Bed that enables R&D teams of Indian academia and industry to validate their products, prototypes, and algorithms and demonstrate various services. Moreover, it provides complete access for research teams to work on novel concepts/ideas holding potential for standardisation in India and globally. This Test Bed has also led to the development of many 5G technologies/IPs available for technology transfer to industry players, facilitating their smooth and speedy deployment of 5G in India.