Vodafone Idea’s CTO said that the telco will continue to carry out O-RAN trials in the country

Indian carrier Vodafone Idea is open to carrying out additional pilots of Open-RAN (O-RAN), and would potentially consider the deployment of O-RAN networks once the technology is mature enough, The Economic Times reported, citing a company executive.

“I can say that at Vodafone Idea, we are more than happy to do the trial and pilots, and to deploy if it [O-RAN] is actually having the feature parity and stability, and it’s making the capex and opex sense. We have done the trials. We are going to do more pilots,” Jagbir Singh, CTO of Vodafone Idea said.

“Is there a need for Open RAN and virtualized RAN? The answer is yes. But are we there yet? To my mind, no,” Singh added.

Rival operators Reliance Jio Infocomm and Bharti Airtel have ongoing O-RAN strategies with the aim of deploying this technology in the mid-to-long term. While Jio is working on its own tech development, Bharti Airtel is working with a number of partners to develop an O-RAN stack.

Vodafone Idea has previously said that the launch of 5G services in the country will depend on several factors such as the evolution of use cases, customer demand and competitive dynamics.

“Vodafone Idea has actively participated in the [5G spectrum] auction and acquired the midband 5G spectrum in 17 priority circles and millimeter wave 5G spectrum in 16 circles. This will enable Vodafone Idea to embark on its 5G rollout journey in the country,” Ravinder Takkar, the company’s non-executive chairman previously said.

“We are in discussion with various vendors for 5G procurement. We are also in discussions with the banks for funding arrangements. And once these two things are in place, we will be taking action to deploy 5G,” said Vodafone Idea CEO Akshay Moondra.

Takker also noted that the company has recently acquired spectrum in all the frequency bands and further strengthened its 4G spectrum holdings with acquisition of additional frequencies in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Punjab.

Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have started to gradually deploy 5G infrastructure across the country.

Reliance Jio Infocomm recently launched the beta trial of its 5G services in parts of Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Varanasi, Nathdwara, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. The carrier confirmed that its 5G service is offered through the 5G Standalone architecture and through a mix of wireless spectrum across the 700 MHz, 3.5 GHz and 26 GHz bands. It uses carrier aggregation that combines these 5G frequencies.

Airtel already announced the launch of 5G services in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Siliguri, Nagpur, Varanasi, Gurugram and Panipat. The carrier also aims to launch 5G in the city of Kolkata in the near future, according to local press reports.

Indian state-owned telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) could launch 5G services by August of next year, according to recent press reports.