The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) announced that 5G internet services will indeed be rolled out in India in 2022. As per a press statement, 13 cities across the country will get 5G in the beginning.
These 13 cities are Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Gandhinagar, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Jamnagar, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai and Pune.
The government, however, did not confirm which telecom operator will be the first to commercially roll out 5G services. All the three leading telecom operators like Jio, Airtel and Vi (Vodafone Idea) have already set up trial sites in these cities. The status of Union govt owned BSNL is unaware.
DoT has partnered with eight agencies for the Indigenous 5G (/topic/5g) Test bed project started in 2018 and is set to be completed by December 31, 2021.
These agencies are Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, Indian Institute of Science (IISC) Bangalore, Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering & Research (SAMEER) and Centre of Excellence in Wireless Technology (CEWiT).
“Costing Rs 224 crore, the project is likely to be completed by December 31, 2021, paving the way for end-to-end testing of 5G (/topic/5g) User Equipments (UEs) and network equipment by 5G (/topic/5g) stakeholders developing 5G (/topic/5g) products/services/use cases, including indigenous start-ups, SMEs, Academia and Industry in the country,” DoT said.
DoT also said that, in September, 2021, a reference has been sent to TRAI, seeking recommendations for the auction of spectrum identified for International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT)/ 5G .,
with regard to reserve price , band plan, block size, quantum of spectrum to be auctioned and conditions of auctions in 526-698 MHZ,700 MHZ, 800 MHZ, 900 MHZ, 1800 MHZ, 2100 MHZ, 2300 MHZ, 2500 MHZ, 3300-3670 MHZ and 24.25-28.5 GHZ bands for 5G public as well as private 5G networks, for meeting the spectrum requirements of captive 5G applications of the industry .
Process of assignment of frequencies to TSPs would be initiated at the earliest possible.
