5G services were officially launched in India earlier this month. Since then, two of India’s biggest telcos, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, have been racing to launch their 5G services in different parts of the country. But these telecom giants have started their services in select cities, but due to non-availability of 5G-enabled smartphones, 5G network is unavailable for a lot of smartphone users. Now, a new report states that to boost 5G connectivity and 5G smartphone adoption in the country, smartphone makers will gradually discontinue 4G smartphones above Rs 10,000.
According to the report, representatives of mobile phone manufacturing companies met with top government officials of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on Wednesday. During the meeting, these officials assured the government officials that they would gradually stop making 4G phones above Rs 10,000 to promote the transition to 5G technology. Also, the focus will be on democratizing 5G smartphones to fill the void.
The meeting was also attended by executives from companies such as Apple, Xiaomi, Samsung and Google, which have been given a three-month deadline to roll out an update to enable 5G on their smartphones that support the technology. While Apple has said it will roll out 5G services via over-the-air (OTA) updates on all supported iPhone models by the end of December, Samsung said it will release software updates by mid-November. Google, on the other hand, has said that it will soon be rolling out the update on its Pixel 6a and Pixel 7 series smartphones.
“We are working with our carrier partners in India to bring the best 5G experience to iPhone users as soon as network verification and testing for quality and performance is completed. 5G will be enabled via a software update and will begin rolling out to iPhone users in December,” Apple said in a statement.
“In India, Samsung has the largest portfolio of 5G devices. We are working closely with our operator partners and are committed to rolling out the OTA update to all our 5G devices by mid-November.”
“We have started rolling out FOTA (Firmware Over-the-Air) updates for select devices like Xiaomi 12 Pro 5G, Mi 11X Pro, Xiaomi 11i, Xiaomi 11i Hypercharge. Most devices will start receiving the OTA update by Diwali,” Muralikrishnan B, President, Xiaomi India said in a statement to IANS.
Smartphone companies will gradually phase out 4G phones above Rs 10,000: Report first surfaced on BGR India.
