In a relief for Chinese telecom equipment firm Huawei, the government has decided to allow all telecom operators and vendors to participate in the upcoming 5G trials.
“We have taken a decision to give 5G spectrum for trial to all players,” Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said at the sidelines of an event.
However, the approval for conducting trials does not automatically translate into a nod for participating in the commercial roll-out of 5G networks.
While the Minister did not specify Huawei, an official source confirmed that the Chinese vendor will be allowed to participate in the trials. The source added that the spectrum would be given to telecom service providers who can then choose to partner with any vendor such as Huawei, Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung, for the trials.
Meet with stakeholders
The source added that officials from Department of Telecom would hold a meeting with industry stakeholders on Tuesday to discuss details regarding the trials.
The long-pending decision comes amid ongoing trade tensions between the U.S. and China.
The U.S., which has banned Huawei citing ‘considerable’ security risk, has been urging allies to not allow the use of Huawei’s network equipment.
