5G prices in India will be cheapest in the world, says IT minister – Smartprix

The Government of India has already announced that the auction for the 5G mega spectrum will happen towards the end of July 2022. They will begin on July 26th wherein over 72GHz of spectrum valued at Rs. 5 lakh crore will be auctioned for 20 years. The spectrum will be awarded to successful bidders for providing seamless 5G services to the public as well as businesses.

Now, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has confirmed that the 5G network will start rolling out by August-September and around 20-25 cities in India will get 5G connectivity by the end of this year. However, this seems to be slightly untrue as the recent reports have confirmed that only 13 cities in India will get 5G in Phase 1. These cities are Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Pune, Chennai, Gandhinagar, Jamnagar, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, and Chandigarh.

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5G in India will be cheaper than the Global market

IT Minister has also claimed that the 5G data prices in India would be lower than the global market. Currently, data rates in India are about 2 dollars (Rs 155) while globally the average rate is 25 dollars (Rs. 1900). 5G prices in India are expected to follow the same trend as the 4G ones are.

This was also hinted by Airtel CTO Randeep Sekhon’s statement that he doesn’t expect much difference between the price of 5G and 4G data. He claimed “We will know the final costs only after the spectrum auction. If you look at other markets, where operators are already proving 5G, we haven’t seen them charging a premium for it over 4G.”

Average Data consumption in India is 18GB per month, which is way higher than the global average data consumption of 11GB per month. This can be the reason why 5G will be cheaper in India than in the rest of the world.

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However, one area that is expected to improve well with 5G’s introduction is the internet speeds in India. This is because India lags behind massively in the Ookla Speedtest Global Index for May 2022. Out of the 125 countries that are rated, India ranks 79th in terms of the global fixed broadband performance index. Hopes are high that this might improve with the rollout of the 5G network.

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