The Indian government has announced plans to put processes in place allowing it to grant immediate approval to 5G field trials and R&D activities, in a bid to ensure India does not lag behind in 5G.
The special regime is being put in place to allow the Department of Telecom to expedite its planned 5G field trials, the Economic Timesreported.
The department has approached vendors including Cisco, Samsung, Ericsson and Nokia to conduct 5G use case trials, while Huawei has also expressed an interest in participating.
Incumbent operators including Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio Infocomm and state-owned operator BSNL have also been invited to participate.
The government plans to allocate spectrum for 5G in the second half of 2019. The telecoms ministry has received recommendations from regulator Trai about the 3500-MHz frequency band, and is also looking at 2.4-GHz to 2.8-GHz spectrum, the report states.
Meanwhile the government plans to establish the National Fibre Authority (NFA) to help meet the fiber needs for 5G, and is working with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) to establish technology standards and develop use cases for the Indian market.
Through the initiatives, the government hopes to have a functional 5G infrastructure in place by 2023.