NEW DELHI, Dec 27: The four Metros and several big cities including Gurugram, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune, Lucknow, and Chandigarh will be the first places to get 5G services next year, an official statement by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said on Monday.
The government plans to hold spectrum auctions for 5G in March-April 2022. In September this year, the DoT sought recommendations from the telecom sector regulator TRAI for auction of spectrum with regard to the reserve price, band plan, block size, quantum of spectrum to be auctioned. TRAI, on its part, has commenced consultations on the issue with industry stakeholders.
“With regard to rollout of 5G services, Telecom Service Providers (TSPs)- M/s Bharti Airtel, M/s Reliance Jio and M/s Vodafone Idea- have established 5G trials sites in Gurugram, Bangalore, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Delhi, Jamnagar, Ahmadabad, Chennai, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Pune, Gandhi Nagar cities. These Metros and big cities would be the first places for launch of 5G services in the country, next year,” the statement said.
Experts have pointed out the need for clarity on the regulatory front with regard to 5G rollout. “The most important thing needed now is clarity on the regulatory side. It is licensing of spectrum to make it available and to make it available on fair and reasonable terms. What exactly it is has to be determined by each country. There has been discussion on whether the spectrum prices are too costly. And I think many things can be done to ensure that there is money to build coverage for the Indian people,” some experts said. “As soon as that happens, 5G will go very quickly. The smartphones are ready, the operators are ready. We need clarity on what frequency bands and other terms and conditions,” the experts added.
5G or fifth generation is the latest upgrade in the long-term evolution (LTE) mobile broadband networks. 5G mainly works in 3 bands, namely low, mid and high frequency spectrum — all of which have their own uses as well as limitations.
While the low band spectrum has shown great promise in terms of coverage and speed of Internet and data exchange, the maximum speed is limited to 100 Mbps (Megabits per second).
This means that while telcos can use and install it for commercial cellphone users who may not have specific demands for very high speed Internet, the low band spectrum may not be optimal for specialised needs of the industry.
The mid-band spectrum, on the other hand, offers higher speeds compared to the low band, but has limitations in terms of coverage area and penetration of signals. Telcos and companies, which have taken the lead on 5G, have indicated that this band may be used by industries and specialised factory units for building captive networks that can be moulded into the needs of that particular industry.
The high-band spectrum offers the highest speed of all the three bands, but has extremely limited coverage and signal penetration strength. Internet speeds in the high-band spectrum of 5G has been tested to be as high as 20 Gbps (giga bits per second), while, in most cases, the maximum internet data speed in 4G has been recorded at 1 Gbps.
(Manas Dasgupta)
