The Big Picture - The 5G Debate

The debate about Huawei’s role in the 5G network rollout in India continues. This comes at a time when the government has made its intentions clear to start with the 5G trials soon. A leading newspaper reported that a high-level committee on 5G is opposed to including Chinese vendors including Huawei in the 5G trials. There is a persistent fear that equipment being sold by Chinese vendors includes a backdoor which can allow the Chinese government to access data from 5G networks. Principal scientific adviser K Vijay Raghavan, who heads a high-level committee on 5G, believes India should “go for trials immediately with all, except for Chinese vendors”. The committee includes officials from the Intelligence Bureau, ministry of external affairs, home ministry, telecom and IT ministry and the department of science & technology. This report comes just days after the US president Donald Trump lifted the trade ban on Huawei, and has asked US based companies to continue working with Huawei. In India, Huawei still doesn’t have the permissions for the 5G trials, and getting these will be crucial. The company has already made repeated assurances that it does not share any data with any entity. On this edition of the big picture we analyse the 5G saga.

Guests - N. K. Goyal, Chairman, Communication Multimedia & Infrastructure Association,
Anil Choudhary, Former Secretary, Internal Security, Ministry of Home Affairs,
Rishi Raj, Executive Editor, Financial Express,
Harsh V. Pant, Head, Strategic Studies, Observer Research Foundation,

Anchor - Frank Rausan Pereira

[sherifparid]

It's baseless actually to differentiate between Chinese and American companies. If China has rules that Huawei has to share intelligence, so do Facebook and Google. The gentleman arguing that it's India vs an MNC in case of Facebook and India vs China in case of Huawei is exaggerating the situation. Because American companies are bound by the rules to share intelligence at request and they have been doing that for decades now. The CIA and the NSA has all our data. What's basically the difference then?

[manavsingh]

Such a contrast to the fanatic debates that take place in general channels.

[Kuldeepsingh-yxpv]

Well, one statement by the panelist that America is losing the technology game is correct?

[rishabhbansal]

The 5G Debate
Key Highlights :-
- In the coming year India is all set to roll out it's 5G trials.
- With the rollout of 5G various companies such as Nokia, Ecrision, Samsung and Huawei role is at stake.
- According to K.Vijayraghavan, Principal Advisory reports recommends to go for 5G trials without the Chinese company.
- Despite Huawei has made repeated provisions that there is no data sharing with the government.

What can 5G do?
- When the technology rolls out in the year 2020 it will take very less time in data transmission. Some of the use cases of this technology can be seen in driverless cars and robotics surgery.
- It is a technology hype.
- 5G will have 1 million penetration of use from current limited to few people.
- India in the past has taken very few steps in yhe development of its own internet protocols.
- Major hub of data of India is outside it's territory.

What are major concerns for Huawei?
- Main conflict arises with USA-China trade war. USA has blacklisted Huawei and as claimed that there is privacy breach of data in the company.
- In India 2G, 3G, 4G all these technologies are been built by Huawei.
- Cost benefit analysis factors are also to be considered as the major telecom companies are undergoing financial crises.
- Huawei provides better technology with lower cost.
- India now stands at the geo-political struggle between US and China.

What India should Do?
- Trade and technology are centre for geo-politics.
- Chinese government has law of providing the data when required by the communist party.
- India's decision should be on the broader perspective. Both national security and Industrial revolution 4.0 is at stake.
- Implications of the decision will either benefit us or it will make us suffer.

Challenges/ Opportunities of 5G -
• Backdoor problem : Before when there was 2G, 3G and 4G there were no such Chinese rules.
• South Korean compnay siad that, " Samsung is ready to work for 5G roll out of India."
• Indian government should make laws pertaining to transmission of data outside the country.
• All the crucial data should be stored within the country boundaries.
• Recently, RBI has mandated to store all the financial data within the country.
• All the stakeholders should be consulted before taking any decision.
• At G20 summit USA and India agreed to come up together to build the 5G technology.
• Some experts says that next revolution phase will belong to China than USA.

Way Forward:-
✓ India should build its cyper technology indigenously. Many brilliant Indian minds are working outside the country which would help us a lot to build our own technology.
✓ Private - Public partnership model would be very much effective.
✓ Experts are needed around the table to arrive at the optimal solution.
✓ India has made a tremendous growth in space technology and we should join our hands together to strengthen India's cyper technology.

[AmitSingh-wytg]

Love you Rajya sabha TV for giving excellent knowledge

[tomtharayil]

Anil chowdhury is ajit Dovals batchmate. They were in the IB together for a long time in the delhi office. Very good officer and well informed. He has done considerable amount for the country

[forefatherofmankind]

After listening to Anil Chaudhary's (former internal security, secretary) high motivating speech about working together as one and all, I realised how disconnected these secretaries are from the 'real politik' (He thinks that cutting edge technology could be developed within few months or weeks) so delusional and impractical... No wonder, we lack that leadership which is 5 steps ahead of the present situation like China.

[meganh]

I have been all around the net looking for a show like this. Sometimes I will spend hours digging through mainstream media to find 4-5 minutes of good intelligent conversations.

[theadvancelearning]

this whole buzz around India being the software leader boils down to e-commerce company in India. We are hardly doing any cutting edge research in AI, 5G, Robotics, Technological Agriculture, etc. I worked in India and the USA, believe me, we provide the USA what they don't find interesting.

[Civilsrace]

I agree with Mr. Choudhary and pant views that india must have its own technology infrastructure that can built data secure, technology equipment and free flow of secured data.
Another thing is that india should rely on its own national interest, do not follow the us-china trade war.

[sherifparid]

We have space technology that only a few countries have. What stops us from building our own cyber infrastructure?

[vishnuias]

We need data protection bill then think about 5 g technology

[nsabhi]

I would like to see anil chowdary sir in coming rstv big picture debates

[sunitasattti]

Please don't call prof nk goyal. It is just very difficult to grasp what he try to say

[gp_]

@rajya sabha TV please make a playlist of Big Picture and In depth

[Ggngame]

huwai chinese 5g ka koi kam nahi india se aap mobile connect krke 100mb/sec se 1gb/sec prapt kr sakte h....data khatm hone pr bhi apko 1mb/sec ki speed milegi jo abhi apke 4g mobile m speed aati h

[mojii]

Ritish Raj too enthusiastic about Huawei.. Hadn't heard any cons from him

[HRHKamal]

The issue is too complex for the members of this panel to analyse.
They don't have either the expertise or the experience.
Disappointed.

[pratikgaikwad]

We can not have driver less car in India...

[Ggngame]

aur sbse badi bat...4g m hi hum soch rahe h ki data bahut jaldi khtm ho jata h to 5g ka to kam hi nahi...

lekin fast internet 5g/6g aam logo k liye nahi upyog business m bhi hota yes ....agar kisi ko 5g/6g chahiye to jiofibre bahut sasta h