HFCL Limited, a telecom equipment manufacturer, has launched 5G Lab-as-a-Service to accelerate rollout of 5G solutions and services.
Telecom operators are adopting multi-vendor networks based on cloud native technologies for faster and cost-effective rollout of 5G services. There is also a need to support multiple frequency bands (sub-6 GHz, millimeter wave) and various deployment scenarios to realize diverse 5G use cases for Consumer, Enterprise and Industry Verticals.

HFCL’s 5G Lab-as-a-Service provides an automated test environment for the private sector, academia and government to work together on product innovations from concept to reality — addressing the needs of industry segments that include manufacturing, transportation, healthcare and retail.

The 5G Lab will help to create pre-integrated and pre-validated 5G solutions for Low Mobility Large Cell needed for efficient rollout of rural mobile broadband in the country, HFCL said.

Indian telecom operators such as Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel are in the process of bringing 5G services in select cities in the initial phase.

“HFCL’s 5G Lab will enable technology providers such as telecom operators, network equipment providers, system integrators, IoT device manufacturers to analyze, integrate and validate performance and capabilities of their products and solutions in a real 5G network environment,” Mahendra Nahata, Managing Director at HFCL said.

HFCL’s lab is equipped with a multi-vendor 5G network and industry leading test tools that include signal analyzer and signal generator for RF conformance tests, O-RAN studio, PTP conformance test equipment and anechoic chamber. HFCL has built an agile DevOps-based test platform for automated lab validation, field deployment, and service automation.

HFCL will provide access to highly skilled teams with expertise in 5G networks and devices including expertise in DevOps, CI/CD, Kubernetes, and cloud native technologies that is needed for testing in 5G environments.