5G telecom services will be rolled out in selected cities in India in 2022. The cities that will get the 5G telecom services in 2022 include Gurugram, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Delhi, Jamnagar, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Pune and Gandhinagar.
Leading telecom service providers Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea have set up 5G test sites in these cities. “These subways and major cities would be the first places to launch 5G services in the country next year,” the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said Monday.
5G is the latest upgrade in the long-term evolution (LTE) mobile broadband networks. While 4G was a great leap forward, allowing people to stream music and video on the go, 5G is designed to connect many more types of devices than smartphones and offers much higher speed and capacity.
In addition to the leading telecom operators and smartphone manufacturers, the government is also actively involved in facilitating the roll-out of 5G services. The Department of Telecom has attracted leading research institutions to develop and test 5G technology.
Eight Agencies – Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, Indian Institute of Science (IISC) Bengaluru, Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering & Research (SAMEER) and Center of Excellence in Wireless Technology (CEWiT) – are involved in the research project ‘Indigenous 5G Test bed project’.
The Indigenous 5G Testbed project began in 2018 and is expected to be completed by December 31, 2021. The project is funded by the Ministry of Telecom. The department has spent Rs224 crore on this project.
The project will cost Rs 224 crore and is expected to be completed by December 31, 2021, paving the way for end-to-end testing of 5G user equipment (UEs) and network equipment by 5G stakeholders promoting 5G products/services/use. cases, including indigenous start-ups, SMEs, academia and industry in the country,” the Ministry of Telecom said.
The native 5G testbed, a visionary technology development project launched in the telecom space, will enable the development, testing and dissemination of 5G technology system components, cross-sector use cases, in addition to laying the groundwork for the development of “6G technology landscape” in the country, it added.
Earlier this month, Telecom Secretary K Rajaraman expressed hope that the 5G testbed would be rolled out in early January. “We hope to roll out this 5G testbed in early January so that SMBs and other parts of the industry can come and test their solution on a work platform,” Rajaraman said at the India Mobile Congress on Dec. 9.
Testbed refers to creating a specific environment for testing the products or services. It includes hardware, software, operating system and network configuration.
As the tests are in their final stages, spectrum allocation would be critical in determining the fate of 5G’s commercial launch in the country. The Department of Telecom has allocated spectrum to Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea and MTNL for 5G trials. Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung and Mavenir also participated in the tests.
In September 2021, the Department of Telecom (DoT) sent a referral to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), requesting recommendations for the auction of spectrum identified for International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT)/5G related to a minimum price, band plan, block size, spectrum to be auctioned and conditions of auctions in 526-698 MHZ, 700 MHZ, 800 MHZ, 900 MHZ, 1800 MHZ, 2100 MHZ, 2300 MHZ, 2500 MHZ, 3300-3670 MHZ and 24.25 -28.5 GHZ bands for 5G public and private 5G networks, to meet the spectrum requirements of industry captive 5G applications (Industry 4.0).
“The process of assigning frequencies to TSPs would be started as soon as possible,” DoT said.
5G mainly works in 3 bands, low, medium and high frequency spectrum. In the low band spectrum, the speed is limited to 100 Mbps. The midband spectrum, on the other hand, offers higher speeds compared to the lowband, but has limitations in terms of coverage area and signal penetration. The internet speed in the high-band spectrum is up to 20 Gbps. The fastest internet speed in 4G is fixed at 1 Gbps.
While 4G networks are mostly designed for phones, 5G networks are designed for much more flexible use, replacing the need for many dedicated networks. They can even function as many separate networks – all at once.