The Indian government is tentatively planning to hold a 5G auction by august next year, and aims to ensure the country does not miss the boat on 5G adoption.
Telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan revealed this week that the government is working to release a broad range of spectrum bands for 5G, and has appointed a Department of Telecom (DoT) taskforce for this purpose, the New Indian Expressreported.
Because the 5G ecosystem is still immature, the government has shelved plans to hold a spectrum auction this fiscal year, and now expects to complete the process by July of August next year, the report states.
The market’s largest operator Vodafone Idea has previously urged the government to hold off on auctioning spectrum until 2020. This would also give room for the telecoms industry – already straddled with high debts from previous spectrum auctions and cutthroat competition – to recover.
But the Indian government is determined to ensure that the rollout of 5G is not delayed in the way the introduction of 4G to India was.
In addition, 5G technology could be critical to meeting the Indian government’s ambitions of ensuring that all Indians have access to 50Mbps broadband.