After speculations around the rollout of the 5G network in India, the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) on Monday confirmed that the 5G network will roll out in India by 2022. DoT noted that 13 cities across the country will get 5G in the beginning. These cities include Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Gandhinagar, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Jamnagar, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai and Pune. Earlier this year, 5G trials were carried out in most of these cities by telecom operators Airtel, Jio and Vi.

“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 further noted that in September 2021, a reference was sent to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), seeking recommendations for the auction of spectrum identified for International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT)/ 5G with regard to a reserve price, band plan, block size, the quantum of spectrum to be auctioned and conditions of auctions.

The experimental spectrum is allotted in various bands included the mid-band (3.2 GHz to 3.67 GHz), the millimeter-wave band (24.25 GHz to 28.5 GHz) and in the Sub-Gigahertz band (700 GHz). The TSPs were also allowed to use their existing spectrum owned by them (800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and 2500 MHz) for the conduct of 5G trials.
5G technology is expected to deliver improved user experience in terms of data download rates (expected to be 10 times that of 4G), up to three times greater spectrum efficiency and ultra-low latency to enable Industry 4.0. The applications of 5G are across a wide range of sectors such as agriculture, education, health, transport, traffic management, smart cities, smart homes, and multiple applications of IoT (Internet of Things).