5G spectrum auction has been approved by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). 13 cities in India will get it in the first phase.
5G spectrum auctions have been approved in India! The auctions will be hosted on July 26, 2022, and over 72GHz of spectrum will be allocated to telecom operators for a period of 20 years. With the auctions done, India could see 5G networks mushrooming before the end of 2022, although most of these cities will take time to offer reliable and strong 5G mobile networks. 5G is said to offer 10 times faster mobile internet than 4G networks.
The 5G spectrum auction will be held for spectrum in various Low (600 MHz, 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz), Mid (3300 MHz) and High (26 GHz) frequency bands. The Mid and High band spectrum will be used by telecom providers to roll-out 5G services that will offer much faster mobile data networks.
5G spectrum auction on July 26: 13 cities get it
Once the auction gets done on July 26, 5G networks will reach 13 Indian cities in the first round. These include Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Gandhinagar, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Jamnagar, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai and Pune. More cities will eventually get access to 5G networks once the network gets more reliable in these circles.
The DoT does not mention which of the operators in India will rollout 5G first. Airtel, Jio and Vodafone Idea (Vi) have so far conducted successful 5G network trials in some of these designated cities and hence, we can expect any of these to rollout 5G as soon as infrastructure is in place.
The government is also trying to reduce the costs for telecom service providers. The Telecom Sector Reforms, announced in September 2021, include zero Spectrum Usage Charges (SUC) on the spectrum acquired by these telecom providers. This should provide some financial relief to these service providers in terms of the operating cost of telecom networks. Additionally, the need to submit a financial bank guarantee equivalent to one annual installment has also been removed.
