Vi, Ericsson showcase 5G trial use cases for rural healthcare

As part of the ongoing 5G trials in India, telecommunication companies Vodafone Idea (Vi) and Ericsson have partnered to showcase the case studies for 5G in the healthcare sector, more specifically, in the rural locations of the country. 

On Monday, Vi had teamed up with Indian startups Vizzbee Robotic Solutions and Tweek Labs, to test 5G use cases for air fleet management solutions.  

While on October 4, Bharti Airtel conducted its own rural 5G trials in partnership with Ericsson, where it was able to realise speeds of over 100 mbps even at a 10 km radius. 

“We are leveraging the power of 5G to provide healthcare access to remote parts of the country. Speed and latency are critical to 5G services, and therefore, our focus has been to achieve throughputs which can effectively enable relevant 5G use cases,” said Jagbir Singh, CTO, Vi. 

The 5G trial spectrum allocations occurred in May this year through the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). 

Under the current trials, the 5G network set up by Vi on the 3.5GHz mid band and 26GHZ mmWave Band in Pune helped deploy Ericsson-based products on the cloud. 

The network allowed for a doctor located in an urban location to perform an ultrasound scan of a patient in a rural location. However, the distance between the two locations were not disclosed. 

As part of the demonstrations, Vi and Ericsson also showcased enhanced mobile broadband (Embb) and fixed wireless applications with 5G.   

Embb is expected to provide even faster broadband speeds than 4G LTE, while Fixed Wireless Access is a alternative to connectivity through cable and fibers, providing much faster speeds. 

“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,” said Amarjeet Singh, Vice President, Ericsson. 

An October 2019 report by Ericsson estimated that the total 5G enabled opportunity in B2B markets will touch $17 billion by 2030, spanning across 10 industries, the majority of which are healthcare, manufacturing, automotive, energy and public safety.