Day 7 Of 5G Spectrum Auction: 5G Services To Go Live In October, Says IT Minister | Digit

India’s 5G spectrum auction has entered its seventh day with the government receiving bids worth ₹1.50 lakh crores until Sunday, July 31. The 5G auction began on July 26 in India where the three major telecom companies– Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vi, along with newcomer Adani Data Networks got into a bidding war for a generous piece of 72 GHz 5G airwaves.

Heartfelt thanks to the telecom industry for making the 5G auction a success.

Let’s all work together to make telecom a sunrise industry.#IMC2022 pic.twitter.com/lYUpWBljTc

— Ashwini Vaishnaw (@AshwiniVaishnaw) July 28, 2022

On Sunday, the auction fetched increased demand for the UP East circle and the 1800 MHz band. The UP East circle has over 10 crore subscribers and includes cities such as Lucknow, Allahabad, Varanasi, Kanpur, Gorakhpur and more, making it an alluring prospect for the telcos like Jio and Airtel. 

Read more: What 5G means? How will 5G change the world?

5G services rollout starting from October

“As soon as the spectrum auction ends, within a few days itself, we will allocate the auctions. We expect that the rollout will happen starting in October, and within a year or so, we should have a good rollout of 5G in the country,” Union Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a press conference.

The Indian 5G Opportunity:

Addressed the Telecom Investors Roundtable in Mumbai. pic.twitter.com/45m9aejeIV

— Ashwini Vaishnaw (@AshwiniVaishnaw) July 30, 2022

Reliance Jio and Airtel remain the two major players in the 5G spectrum bidding who have purchased multiple mid and high-frequency bands. Many in the telecom industry believe that the 5G market could be headed for a duopoly but the IT Minister shunned such beliefs and said, “Duopoly will not happen. The September reforms have resulted in good stability in the industry. We are looking at new players to enter the segment. There is going to be good healthy competition in the sector. BSNL will emerge as a good market balancer.”

5G is the latest standard in cellular connectivity that brings high-speed internet connectivity, increased bandwidth, low latency and ushers in several developments in IoT, AI-enabled platforms and more. With 5G, users will be able to get download speeds reaching over 10 Gbps which is almost 100 times faster than the current 4G LTE connectivity. In India, most 5G phones sold in the last few years support bands in the mid-frequency range and some also support high-frequency bands.

Day 7 of India’s 5G auction is underway and we’ll know the final bid details as it closes in what is likely the final day of bidding.

Also Read: India 5G Spectrum Explained: Why 700MHz Band Matters For Best 5G Coverage