Leading telecom service provider VodafoneIdea (Vi) and Swedish telecom company Ericsson have joined hands to showcase the power of 5G to revolutionize the healthcare sector in India by showing how 5G connectivity can enable access to healthcare in remote parts of the country.

The 5G trial network, set up by Vi on government allocated 3.5 GHz mid-band and 26 GHz mm-Wave band in Pune, deploys Ericsson Radios and Ericsson Dual Mode Core based on cloud-native technology comprising 5G SA, 5G NSA & LTE packet core functions.

Based on the high data speed, low latency and reliability of 5G, a doctor located in an urban center can carry out an ultrasound scan on a patient who is in a remote rural location.

In the partnership, Vi and Ericsson also demonstrated the enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) and fixed wireless access (FWA) applications with 5G.

With the launch of 5G, the digital transformation of enterprises in India will be further accelerated. 5G opens up opportunities for service providers beyond consumers to explore new revenue streams.

Commenting on the partnership, Jagbir Singh, CTO, Vi said, “Vi has developed a 5G ready network which builds on India’s fastest Vi GIGAnet network verified by Ookla. With our 5G trials now, we are leveraging the power of 5G to provide healthcare access to remote parts of the country, amongst a range of other use cases for enterprises and consumers.”

Amarjeet Singh, Vice President, Ericsson, said, “Enhanced mobile broadband and Fixed Wireless Access are expected to be the early use-cases for 5G in India. Over time, we expect more enterprise-related use cases to come up leveraging the benefits of 5G in sectors like healthcare, manufacturing, education etc.”