The government of India expects to kick off a much-awaited 5G spectrum auction next month
Telecom equipment vendors have said that they will be ready to roll out the first phase of 5G in India by October.
According to a report in Indian newspaper Business Standard, telecom gear makers have said that they will be in a position to roll out 5G services in limited areas of the top 30-50 cities in India by March 2023.
The vendors said they were expecting Indian operators to give them details about their 5G deployment plans as well as the equipment required by July of this year.
India’s main telecom equipment makers are Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung.
“Deployment time has become much faster now because of substantial automation. We will put the 5G equipment on existing installed infrastructure like towers which have a fiber backbone, so nothing has to be built from ground up in this phase. With the large manpower already available with us for maintenance, it will take three to four months at most to deploy and launch 5G services,” said an executive of one of the vendors operating in India, as reported by Business Standard.
According to the gear makers, the first phase of 5G deployments in India will require 1,000 towers in each city, while capital Delhi will require 4,000 towers in total.
According to the vendors, a pan-India deployment of 5G services will require the installation of at least 225,000 towers in total, apart from the addition of 5G poles on street furniture and other equipment.
The executive noted that despite certain challenges with the delivery of telecom gear due to shortages of chips and other components as a consequence of the COVID-19 lockdowns in China, the supply of equipment for the deployments in India will not be affected. “The feedback we get is that despite these pressures, delivery in India will be given priority as we are seen as an important large-volume market, So we don’t foresee any delay.”
Ericsson and Nokia are already running 5G trials with Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, while Samsung is carrying out a 5G trial with Reliance Jio.
The Indian government is expected to meet next week on 5G spectrum prices, in order to begin the pending 5G auctions in the country. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is expected to initiate the 5G auctions by next month.
According to previous reports, India plans to award bands such as 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1.8 GHz, 2.1 GHz, 2.3 GHz, 2.5 GHz and 3.3-3.6 GHz bands. Through the spectrum auction, operators will be also able to bid for spectrum in the millimeter-wave band.
According to a previous Ericsson report, 5G will represent around 39% of mobile subscriptions in India at the end of 2027, estimated at about 500 million subscriptions.
“4G is expected to remain the dominant technology in India in 2027. However the 4G subscriptions are forecast to drop from 790 million in 2021 to 710 million in 2027, showing an annual average decline of 2%. Thus, 4G subscriptions are expected to reduce from 68 percent of mobile subscriptions in 2021 to 55 percent in 2027 as subscribers migrate to 5G,” Ericsson said.
