TRAI attends FOIR 24th AGM on faster adoption of 5G

TRAI attended the 24″ Annual General Body Meeting with Forum of Indian Regulators FOIR wherein Honorary Chairperson FOIR/Chairperson, Airport Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) Honorary Vice Chairperson, FOIR/ Chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). Honorary ~~ Vice Chairperson, FOIR/Chairperson, Central Electricity Requlatory Commission (CERC), Honorary Vice Chairperson, FOIR /Chairperson. Competition Commission of India (CCl) and other Chairpersons and member of various regulatory authorities were present in the meeting. During the meeting, discussions were held on faster adoption of 5G and associated technologies in different vertical sectors represented in FOIR.

5G services have been launched in India on 1% Oct 2022. 5G technology holds the potential to enable unprecedented degrees of flexibility, productivity, and efficiency in various industry verticals. The potential of 5G, combined with artificial intelligence (Al), AR/VR, smart platforms and loT, can deliver enormous value to consumers, organizations, and the society at large. It will also pave the way for developing services for making smart cities, autonomous vehicles, smart factories, etc. The adoption of 5G technology is expected to boost the Indian economy by 450 billion dollars over the next 15 years.

Earlier, based on the discussions held during the 21%! Annual General Body Meeting of FOIR on 30.09.2020, a Working Group was constituted to submit its recommendations on “Cross Sector Collaborative Regulation between TRAI and Electricity Regulators”. The working group submitted its recommendations on cross sector collaboration for Aerial/underground fiber deployment, 5G Small Cells deployment, smart metering, smart grid monitoring and on issues related to rapid infrastructure creation and faster rollout of 5G services. The report of the subgroup was discussed in FOIR and also in the Forum of Regulators (FOR) which resulted in multiple connections issued to the telecom service provider and payment for all the commutative bills at one go, separate tariff slab for energy consumed by the telecom service providers.

Encouraged by the success of the working group on ‘Cross Sector Collaborative Regulation between TRAI and Electricity Regulators’ towards deployment of 5G infrastructure, TRAI proposed formation of another working group to study and give recommendations on faster adoption of 5G and associated technologies in different vertical sectors represented in FOIR. In view of the immense potential and likely contribution of 5G, FOIR has agreed to set up a group to study the opportunities and challenges associated with adoption of 5G and related technologies such as AIMLIOT/M2M/ARNR/Industry4.0 etc. in different sectors represented in FOIR viz. Industries, ports, airports, power sector, petroleum & natural gas, Real Estate. Food industry etc for sector specific applications as well as common applications in Data analytics, office management, MIS etc. for the regulators. As deliberated and agreed by FOIR members, the Working Group will be formed by drawing members from expert sector regulators with TRAI as convenor of the Group.

CT Bureau