Efforts are on to make multiple spectrum bands available for 5G, says DoT official

CIOReviewIndia Team | Friday, 03 September 2021, 07:11 IST

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The efforts to make multiple frequency ranges available for telecom carriers to rollout commercial fifth-generation or 5G services are on, a senior telecom department official said.The efforts to make multiple frequency ranges available for telecom carriers to rollout commercial fifth-generation or 5G services are on, a senior telecom department official said.

"The rollout of 5G is somehow being resolved in different bands, including sub 1 gigahertz, mid band, millimeter band, and the International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) spectrum has been identified," Ashok Kumar Tiwari, Member (Technology) at the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said at the India Mobile Conclave - 2021.

Tiwari further said that efforts were in progress to make airwaves in various bands available for service providers as early as possible.

The industry has been demanding adequate volume of spectrum including millimeter or mmWave band to roll out 5G services across the country.

The 5G high-level forum headed by Stanford University professor AJ Paulraj in 2018 recommended that about 6,000 Mhz of spectrum should be made available immediately for the next generation of mobile services.

The forum also suggested 11 bands for 5G services of which four bands — premium 700 Mhz band, 3.5 gigahertz (Ghz), 24 Ghz and 28 Ghz band — can be made available for the next generation of telecom service.

In 2018, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had recommended 3300-3600MHz band spectrum at a base price of Rs 492-crore per unit, which the industry believes is too high to purchase.

"DoT took up several exhaustive meetings with stakeholders consultations in the last three years. And now it has become an eminent need to identify and carve out a spectrum for IMT services, considering the need for a large quantum of spectrum to reach the benefit of 5G in terms of enhanced speed and low latency, reliability and massive machine type communication," Tiwari said.

The use cases and indigenous products could also be tried as part of the 5G technology trials which are in process actually, he said, adding that the department has recently held a national hackathon to identify 100 innovative 5G use cases to promote the use of next generation technology in different social applications.

The department, according to the official, has received several innovative ideas and applications in sectors such as agriculture, health, education, fintech, and logistics.

DoT, however, continues to hold consultation with different industries and associations to promote and establish 5G use cases.

The department has allocated Rs 58,700-crore that includes 44% towards capital expenditure (capex) under the Union Budget 2021-22.

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