Telecom equipment provider Ericsson on Monday said it is scaling up the production capacity and operations with its partner Jabil in Pune for 5G network deployment in the country. The company will set up a technology centre in Pune to increase the speed in bringing products into the market.

The announcement from Ericsson comes after the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents major telecom operators had last month said that the telecom companies are facing challenges in network expansion due to delay in supply of equipment from the vendors. Besides Ericsson, telecom operators have partnered with Nokia and Samsung as well to source telecom equipment for deploying 5G network.

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Currently, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio are the only operators which are deploying 5G in the country. At present, the operators have deployed 5G in parts of 14 states/union territories.

“We are ramping up production of our 5G telecom equipment in Pune in a phased manner to support the network deployments of Indian telecom service providers. The production in India is part of our global production footprint with a presence across continents,” said Nunzio Mirtillo, head of market of Southeast Asia, Oceania and India regions at Ericsson.

The company will also partner with local equipment makers in order to scale up the production of 5G equipments in the country.

At its technology center, Ericsson will initially produce ultra-lightweight, massive MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) antenna integrated radios AIR 3219 and AIR 3268, it said.

In October, communications minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had asked the telecom operators to increase the 5G base transceiver sites (BTS) to 10,000 per week compared to 2,500 BTS per week.

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However, the telecom service providers are installing 2,500 base stations per week at present, according to information shared by minister of state for communications Devusinh Chauhan in the Rajya Sabha on December 16.

As of November 26, 20,980 base stations have been installed in the country across 14 states, Chauhan had said. Of the total base stations, Jio has installed the maximum sites at 17,687 while Airtel has installed 3,293 sites.

According to Ericsson Mobility Report, 5G subscribers in India are expected to reach around 690 million by the end of 2028.