DoT approves Huawei to demo 5G capabilities at Indian Mobile Congress

In a nod that could pave the way forward for Chinese hardware manufacturer Huawei for upcoming broad 5G trials in India, the government has allowed the company to participate in 5G use case demos organised by the Indian Mobile Congress (IMC) next week.  

Though, the permission is not linked to any approval to the participation of Huawei in the upcoming 5G trails. The final decision, in this regard, is yet to be taken by the govt. 

The demos will be mainly centred around highlighting the benefits of 5G migration, as per the official privy to the development. Huawei will present the demos with Airtel and Vodafone-Idea, who currently use Huawei and ZTE equipment for their network operations in India. 

Expressing happiness over the go-ahead, Huawei India CEO Jay Chen said to TOI that the firm will showcase leading and latest solutions at the event

While the Huawei broad participation in 5G still under suspicion, the nod is seen as more of a diplomatic move by Indian govt ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to India. 

Earlier this year, there were revelations that Huawei is embedding snooping software in the source code of its serves to spy and access the data of other countries. 

However, Huwaei has refuted such reports and said that the company has made several attempts to get a clearance on rolling out 5G infrastructure with government bodies but did not receive any official response. 

A fortnight ago, the company threatened that it won’t be investing more capital in its Indian operations if denied approval for their 5G equipment in India. Even Chinese government officials had warned of ‘reverse sanctions’ on Indian companies doing business in China if Huawei’s 5G rollout in the country was blocked.