Vodafone Idea and Ericsson join hands to showcase the potential of 5G to developing the healthcare sector in India by showing how 5G connectivity can enable access to healthcare in remote parts of the country.

Jagbir Singh, CTO, Vi states, “Vi has developed a 5G ready network which builds on India’s fastest Vi GIGAnet network verified by Ookla. With our 5G trials now, we are leveraging the power of 5G to provide healthcare access to remote parts of the country, amongst a range of other use cases for enterprises and consumers. Speed and latency are critical to 5G services, and therefore, our focus has been to achieve throughputs which can effectively enable relevant 5G use cases for the Digital India of tomorrow.”

The 5G trial network set up by Vi on Govt allocated 3.5 GHz mid band & 26 GHz mm Wave band in Pune, deploys Ericsson Radios and Ericsson Dual Mode Core based on cloud native technology comprising of 5G SA, 5G NSA & LTE packet core functions.

Based on the high data speed, low latency and reliability of 5G, a doctor located in an urban center can actually carry out an ultrasound scan on a patient who is in a remote rural location. This is being trialed by Vi using Ericsson’s 5G infrastructure to showcase the power of 5G to reach healthcare to remote parts of the country.

Amarjeet Singh, Vice President, Ericsson says, “Enhanced mobile broadband and Fixed Wireless Access are expected to be the early use-cases for 5G in India. Over time, we expect more enterprise related use cases to come up leveraging the benefits of 5G in sectors like healthcare, manufacturing, education etc. The flexible Dual Mode Core set by Ericsson with Vi in Pune is helping enterprises leverage the network to deploy use cases like Remote video monitoring, Telemedicine, Digital twin, AR/VR etc. during the ongoing trials.” 

The launch of 5G is expected to bring in digital transformation of enterprises in India will be further accelerated. 5G opens up opportunities for service providers beyond consumers to explore new revenue streams. Ericsson’s 5G Business Compass report estimates the total 5G-enabled B2B opportunity for Indian operators, across 10 industries, would be $17 billion USD by 2030. The top industries that are expected to leverage 5G for their digitalization include healthcare, manufacturing, energy and utilities, automotive and public safety.