Direction () : Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these. There was something pathetic about a minister’s wishful thinking as he addressed the media and talked about his vision of 5G mobile generation for country X. He said his vision of 5G for the country was not just a rollout of services, but the creation of intellectual property (IP) in the country and patents in 5G technology. This may be possible in a couple of decades, but right now we might as well be crying for the moon. While companies around the world, notably the Chinese, have secured thousands of patents in this revolutionary technology that will provide the platform for inventing a host of new products, technologies and services, the companies in country X are yet to start field trials of 5G spectrum for which permission was granted just recently. Equipment for these trials, needless to say, will be provided by foreign vendors. Most people assume that 5G will provide faster speeds than 4G, which bypasses the hinterland and works only patchily in the urban area, but that would be a gross simplification

A global 5G network will unify mobile communication and connect people and devices to everything through the Internet of Things. Given that 3G and 4G patent holders have controlled the use of mobile technologies in the smartphone industry, those who own the intellectual property (IP), primarily the standard essential patents, will become the market leaders in a technology that will reshape the future. Country X has sent missions to the moon but in the area where technological prowess matters most, the country is lost in a black hole. Not a single telecom firm of the country is in the list of 303 deployment of 5G technology worldwide. This industry list has 20 operators in 294 locations. Worse, although the domestic firms are expected to start their threemonth-long trial shortly, it is worth remembering that the industry is in dire straits with huge debts and has indicated that it would be in no position to bid for 5G spectrum. Nor does country X have the kind of resources that China is investing in 5G apart from the sharp research effort on it. No wonder Chinese firms command the lion’s share of patents among the clutch of global firms that own IP in 5G. Its star performer Huawei __________ to surge ahead with revenues soaring by 23 per cent. Country X has to decide if Huawei is a security threat or not. Can country X ever catch up? Field trials are just the starting point; it merely allows operators and equipment makers to prove that the network they have designed in a laboratory actually works in practice. Then there is the long haul to a commercial rollout. As country X obsesses about its technological expertise in a mythical past, the future is looking decidedly dim.