New Delhi, Dec 29: The wait is almost over, at least according to reports. A press release from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) mentions that 5G is going to start rolling out in the country by 2022. This should come as good news to smartphone companies rolling out 5G devices and all those who have bought 5G phones in anticipation for the new tech.
According to the release, to kick it all off, following 13 cities in India are going to receive 5G services first with the rest following soon – Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Gandhinagar, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Jamnagar, Kolkata, Chennai, Lucknow, Pune, Delhi, Mumbai.More cities are going to be added to the 5G list soon after.
“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 in the release.
DoT has, however, not officially confirmed which telecom operator will be the first in the country to roll out the 5G services commercially, but one can expect that it is going to be one of the top three – Airtel, Vi, or Jio. All the three companies have already set up trial sites in the 13 cities listed by DoT.
Reports state that DoT has partnered with eight agencies for the Indigenous 5G Testbed project that started in 2018 and is expected to wrap up by December 31. The department has also said that “a reference has been sent to TRAI in September 2021 to seek recommendations for the auction of spectrum identified for 5G with respect to the reserve price, band plan, block size, the quantum of spectrum to be auctioned, and the conditions of auctions in various bands (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) for public 5G and private 5G networks”.