Big cities along with metros to see 5G rollout next year

Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Chandigarh and Chennai will be among cities that will see the debut of high-speed 5G telecom services in the country next year, the government has said.

It emphasised that groundwork for launch of the latest mobile technology is being completed at a rapid pace.
Work has already started for auction of 5G spectrum next year even as top telecom companies such as Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea have established 5G trial sites. These are in some key cities where buyers are likely to pay more for faster and more responsive networks.

Other cities where the trial sites have been set up are Kolkata, Jamnagar, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Lucknow, and Gandhi Nagar, the telecom ministry said, as it outlined the rollout plans for 5G in the country.

Communications and IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has already said that the relief package that had been extended to the telecom industry recently will enable mobile companies to participate aggressively in network expansion and new age services such as 5G.

The government said that indigenisation — including that of telecom infrastructure — would be a key enabler that will drive the launch of 5G services in the country. Towards this, the telecom ministry had funded an indigenous 5G test-bed project in top educational institutes, which has now reached its final stages.

The eight agencies that are working on the project for the last three years are IIT-Bombay, IIT-Delhi, IIT-Hyderabad, IIT-Madras, IITKanpur, IISc-Bangalore, SAMEER (Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering Research) and CEWiT (Centre of Excellence in Wireless Technology).