A group of Indian telecom gear makers have received a mandate from Indian Railways to set up a 5G-based mobile communication network on a trial basis between Palwal and Mathura stations, a senior official of industry body VoICE said on Thursday.

The Voice of Indian Communication Technology Enterprises (VoICE) Director General R K Bhatnagar told PTI that the association members will use the premium 700 megahertz spectrum band that is available with Indian Railways to deploy 5G technology.

"Indian Railways has asked VoICE for setting up a 5G-based mobile communication network on the Palwal-Mathura sector of (82 km) Indian Railways in a consortium mode on 700 MHz band as Proof of Concept. Implementation target is nine to 12 months," Bhatnagar said.

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VoICE members include companies such as Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd (HFCL), Telecommunications Consultants India, Signaltron, Lekha Wireless, Coral Telecom, Sparsh, Astrome, Dyotis etc.

The successful trial will help association members to scale up their businesses and benefit from Indian Railways Rs 59,000 crore modernisation plan.

"Railways will share their existing infrastructure including spectrum. It is no cost to Railways," Bhatnagar said.

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The pilot will cover various Railway communications like train control communication, emergency communication, gate phone, communication between train controller/station master and driver/guard, track maintenance staff, mission-critical push-to-talk, and group cast mass notification.

Mission Critical services like floor control, audio and video broadcast, push to talk services. special priority calls also will be covered.

This is the first 5G pilot for a private enterprise network that will be conducted by Indian telecom gear makers.

"Except HFCL, most of the VoICE members are small players. VoICE is trying to support domestic Indian design-led telecom players on taking up similar projects for Indian Army, Private 5G Enterprise networks," Bhatnagar said.

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