Factors That Are Delaying 5G Spectrum Auction In India

Airtel recently conducted 5G trials in Mumbai's Phoenix Mall. Besides, the telecom operator is now planning test networks in other parts of the country. The company has joined hands with Nokia for testing the network in Mumbai. However, the telco conducted trials with Ericsson in Gurgaon.

Notably, the telecom operator gets 1 Gbps speed during testing 5G networks with Nokia and Ericsson. Similarly, India's largest telecom operator conducted trials in Mumbai with its indigenously developed technology.

Vodafone-Ide 5G Trials

In fact, Vodafone-Idea, who is not very vocal about its 5G plans, also shared that it has joined hands with Nokia and Ericsson for testing networks in Pune and Gandhinagar.

"Recently, we have tested dynamic spectrum sharing as a feature between 4G and 5G with our existing 4g spectrum. We have initiated 5G trials with our major network partners Nokia and Ericsson on the freshly allocated 5G spectrum in Pune and Gandhinagar," the company's MD Ravinder Takkar said.

This clearly shows that Indian telecom operators are testing the network; however, it seems that the auction is likely to delay further as there are several issues. So, in that way, we are listing all issues that are delaying the 5G spectrum auction in India.

Issues That Are Delaying 5G Spectrum Auction

The 5G spectrum pricing is the first and the foremost reason why trails and auction is expected to be delayed as TRAI fixed for Rs. 492 crores per MHz band. Reliance
Jio, Airtel, and Vodafone-Idea also said that the pricing is too high and they cannot pay such a huge amount. Secondly, the standards have been not decided as telcos want DoT to include affordable bands, such as mmWave-26GHz, 28GHz, and 37GHz in the auction.

"We once again request DoT for an early referral to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India for earmarking and including these mmWave bands for auction along with other 5G bands (namely 3.5GHz) as this is an imperative requirement," COAI said in the letter.

However, global satellite internet players have asked the Department of Telecommunication not to provide 28 MHz bands to telcos as it might affect their download speed.

Lastly, the Indian Navy is not ready to vacate the 100 MHz band in 3300 MHz and 3600 MHz airwaves. These factors are forcing DoT to delay the auction. This is why believe that these issues will automatically affect the commercial rollout of the 5G network.