5G services will be launched in India by the end of May this very year as confirmed by the DoT, Department of Telecommunications. In the beginning, it will be made available in thirteen cities across India, revealed the DoT. Airtel’s 5G network is ready and it is going to roll out soon after the auction gets completed- said Bharti Mittal, the chief of Airtel.
Citizens who have a 5G smartphone but do not know when they will be able to put the phone’s capability to the best use, need not worry anymore. The launch is in full swing.
Vi, Jio and Airtel on the other hand have been working for long towards producing the network which can connect everything and everyone virtually together including devices, machines and objects such as smartphones which support 5G a reality in the country. As mentioned earlier, customers should be patient as the network will not be available countrywide immediately after its launch. The services will take ssom time to gain maturity while being initially launched.
What is 5G?
Short for the fifth generation, 5G is a new global wireless standard which provides connectivity to most smartphones out there. It succeeds the 4G network and has more reliability, higher multi-Gbps speeds and lower latency compared to the mobile networks of the previous-generation. These features are hugely beneficial and high-speed broadband, AI and use cases against VR or AR are also presented by the network. Countries like China, US, Europe and South Korea have already raced ahead in deployments of 5G network.
The telecom department funded the indigenous 5G testbed project and it has been completed by 31st December last year. The 5G spectrum auction is expected to be happening in early June this year by the government. The services will start rolling down in different cities from August-September onwards following this. Like Airtel, jio has also claimed to launch the 5G network in India as the first telecom operator.
The 13 mentioned cities are expected to be Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Chandigarh, Delhi, Pune, Gandhinagar, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Gurugram, Chennai, Jamnagar etc. Vi, Jio and Airtel, the three major telecom operators have already set up trial sites of 5G in these cities.
Currently the 5G frequency bands are unavailable in India. After the spectrum auctions, whose dates haven’t been announced yet, it is expected that they will be available. The auctions will be held ahead of the rollout. The DoT said in a statement that the process of assignment of frequencies to Telecom Service Providers, TSPs would be initiated as early as possible.
Meanwhile, Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of jio recently announced that the company will take the lead in the country on the network. Owing to the telco’s converged network infrastructure, it will easily upgrade to a 5G network from 4G. Ambani added that technology components, indigenously developed network and hardware will power jio’s 5G.
On the contrary, Airtel has not yet revealed its plans to launch 5G in the country. The next generation of mobile technology needs more time to be rolled out across the country according to the company. Gopal Vittal, the CEO of Airtel recently commented that the spectrum is expensive and the ecosystem in the country is underdeveloped right now. The cost is way over the top for most customers.