India aims to award all the unsold frequencies from last year’s spectrum auction as well as new airwaves
India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has started the process for auctioning the next round of 5G spectrum, sending a reference to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) seeking reserve price for various bands, local newspaper The Economic Times reported.
According to government officials, all the unsold frequencies from last year’s spectrum auction, as well as some additional frequencies in the 37 GHz band, will be put up on sale.
“The DoT is planning to put airwaves ranging from 600 MHz to above 37 GHz on sale,” an official was quoted as saying.
The DoT has excluded the 6 GHz from the upcoming sale. Local operators are asking the government to award this spectrum band for the provision of telecom services while tech companies want this band for the provision of Wi-Fi, according to the report. The DoT still has to make a final decision on this issue.
Trai will now study the reference from the DoT and come out with a consultation paper on the issue in the coming weeks, the report adds.
The report also stated that local operators Reliance Jio Infocomm and Bharti Airtel could probably be the sole bidders as Vodafone Idea lacks the funds to bid in the process.
Also, the future spectrum auction will include the frequencies that are set to expire in 2024, according to a previous report. The report highlighted that spectrum in the 900 and 1800 MHz bands for eight circles including UP (East), UP (West), West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, J&K, North-East and Odisha is expiring in 2024. The spectrum is currently being held by Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea.
India completed its first 5G spectrum auction last year. Reliance Jio walked away with the most spectrum, having spent $11 billion. Airtel won spectrum worth $5.4 billion, while Vodafone received spectrum worth $2.4 billion. Finally, Adani purchased spectrum worth approximately $27 million, which it will use to offer private 5G network services.
Airtel said its 5G services are now available in over 3,500 cities and towns across India, surpassing the 10 million unique customer mark at a national level. The company also said it aims to cover every town and key rural areas in India by September 2023.
In October 2022, Bharti Airtel initially launched 5G services in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Siliguri, Nagpur and Varanasi.
Reliance Jio Infocomm has been rapidly expanding its 5G network using Standalone (SA) architecture since October 2022. The telco has already deployed its 5G service in 6,258 cities across 36 states in India, according to the carrier’s website.
In June, Vodafone Idea had confirmed “advanced talks” with a number of vendors in order to define its final strategy for the deployment of 5G in India. Vodafone previously said it was negotiating loans with local banks in order to secure the necessary funds to launch 5G.
