Government Of India, Asks Apple And Samsung And Other Smartphone Manufacturers To Upgrade 5G Software In Their Products

Apple has not updated the 5G software. (photo: twitter @apple)

JAKARTA - The Indian government will encourage Apple, Samsung, and other mobile phone manufacturers to prioritize the rollout and upgrade of software to support 5G in their countries. This request comes amid concerns that many smartphone models are not ready for the high-speed services that have just been launched.

India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has already launched 5G services on October 1 amid much fanfare, with leading telecom operator Reliance Jio saying it will make the service available in four cities. Meanwhile, its rival Bharti Airtel is preparing to roll out in eight cities. Both companies said the service would be expanded next year.

But according to three industry sources and the Airtel website, Apple's iPhone models, including the latest iPhone 14, and many of Samsung's flagship phones don't have compatible software to support 5G in India.

Concerned about this, top bureaucrats from India's telecommunications and IT departments will chair a meeting on Wednesday for early 5G adoption. He asked smartphone executives from foreign companies Apple, Samsung, Vivo, and Xiaomi, as well as domestic telecommunications operators Reliance, Airtel, and Vodafone Idea to attend, according to government documents seen by Reuters.

The agenda includes holding talks "to prioritize" and releasing software upgrades to support high-speed networks, the notice for the closed-door meeting stated.

Apple Inc, Samsung Electronics, Vivo, Xiaomi Corp, as well as three domestic telecom operators, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the report. Meanwhile, India's IT and telecommunication Department also did not respond to this.

India has said that the rollout of 5G in the world's largest mobile market, after China, will bring high-speed internet to consumers, with simultaneous socio-economic benefits in sectors such as agriculture and health.

In August, Jio, India's largest mobile operator with more than 420 million subscribers, picked up US$11 billion worth of airwaves in a US$19 billion 5G spectrum auction. Airtel spent more than 5 billion US dollars, while Vodafone provided more than 2 billion US dollars.

While telecom players and smartphone companies have been holding discussions with each other, resolving the compatibility issue between India's telecom companies-specific 5G technology and phone software takes time.

Airtel's website last Tuesday showed "Apple hasn't updated the software" for all 12 to 14 iPhone models from Apple under the 5G compatible section. For Samsung too, many models are not ready yet. While more than three dozen models of Xiaomi and Vivo China are shown ready to use with its 5G services.

"Apple has spent a lot of time. Airtel is worried about this because many of their premium clients use Apple devices," said a second industry source who knew firsthand about the situation. He also added that Apple and Airtel had held talks.

A third source with direct knowledge of the matter said Apple was in the process of testing and validating various 5G offerings from network providers in India. The lack of 5G software upgrades has irritated users.

On Sunday 9 October, the CEO of SoftBank-backed digital payments firm Paytm, renamed Vijay Sharma, marked Airtel in a tweet to say he bought a Google Pixel 6a phone just to use 5G, but the phone did not show network support in New Delhi. Later, he asked Google to upgrade the software in a tweet.

In response, a Twitter user, Mudit control, posted a screenshot showing his exchange with a Google Support team telling him the company is working with Indian telecommunications operators to enable 5G functionality on its phones "as soon as possible", at least until December. Google itself did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters on this report.