Global body nod to India's LMLC configuration

New Delhi, June 22 (SURYAA) The Indian proposal for inclusion of mandatory evaluation of Low Mobility Large Cell (LMLC) configuration for 5G technology has been approved by a global telecom organisation, COAI said on Thursday.

"At the ITU-R (International Telecommunication Union - Radiocommunications) terrestrial radio systems (WP5D) meeting held in Canada, the Indian delegation championed the mandatory evaluation of a configuration called LMLC," the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said in a release here.

The delegation comprised members of Telecom Engineering Center (TEC), research wing of Department of Telecom, COAI, Telecommunications Standards Development Society India, industry and academia.

"This will be an evaluation scenario which new radio systems will need to satisfy for qualifying as 5G. This configuration is specifically designed with rural India in mind, and is likely to become a game changer," it said. 

"The COAI, with its members, will be working with the Indian administration and other stakeholders to pursue this further in the third-generation partnership project (3GPP), a telecom standard setting body, and ensure that the support for LMLC in the 5G specification is created," it added. 

Noting that only 13 per cent of India's rural population has access to Internet, COAI said: "Connecting rural India with high-speed mobile broadband to become reality soon."

"It is becoming clear that by 2020, the National Optical Fiber Network (NOFN), recently rechristened as BharatNet, would have reached all the 250,000 gram panchayats in the country."

In 2012, ITU-R embarked on a programme to develop "IMT (International Mobile Telecommunication) for 2020 and beyond", for catalysing 5G research activities around the world.