Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated the 6th India Mobile Congress at Pragati Maidan in Delhi and launched 5G services. The 5G telecom services seek to provide seamless coverage, high data rate, low latency and highly reliable communications system. The three major telecom operators of the country demonstrated one use case each in front of the prime minister to show the potential of 5G technology in India.
The auction of radio waves used for mobile services saw a muted opening on Tuesday, with five rounds attracting bids worth about Rs 11,000 crore from telecom companies. The government has put over 10,500 Mhz spectrum in eight frequency bands -- 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1,800 MHz, 2,100 MHz, 2,300 MHz, 2,500 MHz, 3,300 MHz and 26 GHz, valued at Rs 96,238 crore at base price, for auction.
Bharti Airtel is launching 5G telecom services in eight cities, including four metros, on Saturday and will progressively cover the entire country by March 2024, its chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said. Speaking at the IMC 2022, he said the nation's oldest private telecom operator is launching 5G mobile services in eight major cities and will cover most parts by March 2023 and the entire country by March 2024.
The government will conduct a spectrum auction this year, which will facilitate the roll-out of 5G services by private telecom operators during the financial year 2022-23, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Tuesday. "Spectrum auctions will be conducted in 2022 to facilitate the roll-out of 5G mobile services within 2022-23 by private telecom providers," Sitharaman said. She said the telecommunications sector in general and 5G, in particular, can enable growth and offer job opportunities.
The long-awaited high-speed 5G services are expected to be rolled out in about a month, Minister of State for Telecom Devusinh Chauhan said on Monday. Addressing the inaugural event of the International Telecommunication Union's Regional Standardisation Forum (RSF) for Asia and Oceania region, Chauhan said India is likely to deploy indigenously developed and manufactured 5G telecom gears by end of this year for 5G services. "In about a month, 5G mobile services will roll out in the country, which will have multiplier effects on the development of all sectors.
Telecom major Jio will start the beta trial of 5G services in four cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Varanasi from October 5 with a select set of customers, the company said on Tuesday. The company will send invites to customers under 'Jio True 5G Welcome Offer' to try its 5G services and the subscribers will get Unlimited 5G data with up to 1 gigabit per second speed. "Post the successful demonstration of its True-5G services at the India Mobile Congress 2022, Jio is announcing the Beta trial of its True-5G services on the auspicious occasion of Dussehra, for Jio users in four cities - Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Varanasi," Jio said in the statement.
Indian telcos have been able to garner over 20 million 5G customers in less than four months after the official launch of the service last October, according to industry estimates. With telecom operators like Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel aggressively rolling out their 5G services in over 190 cities across the country to date, India is now only behind China and the US in terms of the number of cities in a country where 5G services have been extended. Top executives in telcos say that the number of 5G subscribers in India is a conservative estimate and that it will rise as the roll-out gains momentum.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday cleared utilisation of the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) for provision of mobile connectivity in 7,287 uncovered villages across five states at an estimated cost of Rs 6,466 crore. Briefing media on the Cabinet decisions, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said these uncovered villages of 44 aspirational districts across five states of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Odisha will get 4G-based mobile services.
It is the first private telecom firm to launch 3G mobile services in the country.
Bharti Airtel on Wednesday said it will launch its third-generation (3G) mobile services 'very soon'.
The state-run BSNL on Friday set the ball rolling for 3G mobile services as the telecom major launched the next generation mobile services in 11 cities and announced a rate of Re 1 per minute for video call in the Rs 2,500-plan.
Apex telecom industry body COAI has asserted that spectrum pricing should be kept conducive to market conditions as 5G entails upfront capital investments with monetisation spread over a long-haul, and pricing radiowaves high will only push the players up against the wall. The stage is set for Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to come out with its recommendations on 5G spectrum pricing and other modalities for upcoming auctions, and the announcement from the sector watchdog is expected anytime now. Norms will also be worked out for new frequencies such as 526-698 MHz and millimetre band, that is 24.25 - 28.5 GHz, in addition to bands such as 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz, 2500 MHz, 3300-3670 MHz.
Telecom regulator Trai on Monday recommended about 39 per cent reduction in the reserve or floor price for the sale of spectrum for mobile services, including the latest 5G offering, as it looked to match revenue expectations with the industry's paying capacity. With large swathes of spectrum remaining unsold in the last two auctions, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) recommended to the government for selling airwaves in all existing bands of 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz, 2500 MHz and new slots of 600 MHz, 3300-3670 MHz and 24.25-28.5 GHz. It has suggested a lower reserve price for all bands, compared to the prices proposed in the previous recommendations in 2018.
The Delhi HC has asked the department of telecommunications to not take any coercive action until the next hearing of the case.
The exercise is ostensibly for security reasons and to prevent misuse of the freedom of speech in cyberspace.
Says Airtel-Vodafone-Idea pacts violate licence terms; firms may move TDSAT.
After initial hiccups, the government on Thursday permitted carriage of video calls on mobile networks subject to an undertaking by operators that they would provide interception capability by July 31 this year.
Sibal said the government will have enough radio waves for all operators after it is released from the defence services as well as the cancellation of 122 2G new licences by the Supreme Court in the 2G spectrum allocation case.
The government will soon resolve the security concerns surrounding third-generation (3G) video calls.
As 3G mobile services are set to be rolled out soon in the country, cyber experts sound a word of caution about the high tech enabled mobile phones, which they say are more vulnerable in the world of technology related crimes.
For over a year Sanjay Chandra, managing director of the Unitech group, has been under a cloud for various reasons.
The government has issued guidelines for 3G spectrum auction, allowing three operators in most circles.
The government on Wednesday said the guidelines for the Gen Next mobile services (3G) that includes video calls will be issued soon addressing all security concerns raised by the home ministry.
The empowered group of ministers, headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, met in New Delhi to finalise the notice inviting applications from the potential operators to participate in the forthcoming auctioning for 3G spectrum.
The Standing Committee on Information Technology has decided to have briefing on allocating spectrum for the existing services and introduction of 3G services from department of telecommunication, an official communication said. Mobile operators have been demanding additional spectrum from the Government for 2G services, where they have more subscribers.
Within a week of the government announcing plans to auction spectrum for 3G mobile services, India's largest private cellular operator Bharti Airtel on Wednesday said it will launch the service by October next year.
The government is learnt to have decided to allow only three private players to offer 3G mobile services for which the spectrum would be auctioned next month and the successful bidders would be asked to pay 100 per cent of the bidding amount in March this year.
Communications Minister A Raja met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday and briefed him about the developments in the telecom sector including recent policy decision like introduction of number portability and releasing spectrum for third generation (3G) mobile services. The meeting lasted for about 25 minutes, official sources confirmed but did not give details.
The much awaited auction of spectrum for 3G mobile services is likely to be delayed by more than a month and may commence from the first week of March next year -- schedule for which is to be announced soon.
Suggesting delinking of spectrum from telecom licences, the Economic Survey for the year 2008-09 has suggested auctioning radio frequencies for the forthcoming 3G mobile services.
The focus will be on starting 3G services at the earliest. "By the end of this year, process for acutioning 3G spectrum (radio frequency) would be completed," he said after assuming office along with his junior ministerial colleagues Sachin Pilot and Gurdas Kamat.
Steering India towards a new level of wireless telephony, the government on Monday announced immediate release of spectrum for 'third generation' (3G) mobile services and allowed users to switch operators while retaining the cell phone numbers. Number portability, which would allow users to change their service provider while keeping the numbers unchanged, will be introduced in the four metropolitan cities at the earliest.
Speaking at the sidelines of the launch of its pre-paid 3G mobile service, MTNL's CMD R S P Sinha said: "In the first year of operations, we want between 200,000 and 300,000 customers for our 3G services." Interestingly, after about six months of operations, MTNL has only 400 subscribers for its 3G service, which has been branded 'Jadoo'.
"If operators do not achieve their roll-out obligations, they would be given one year within which to fulfill their roll-out obligations. Within this one year, the operators would be fined a spectrum cess of 2.5 per cent of their winning auction per quarter," department of telecommunication said in its proposed guidelines for auction and allotment of spectrum for 3G services.
Gearing up to meet the challenges of next generation mobile services -- 3G, the world's largest handset maker, Nokia, on Wednesday announced a slew of new services like music online and location based services to be made available on its new phones, to be launched shortly.
With 3G mobile services, which provide high-speed downloads of data, movies and videos, around six month away, mobile phone makers are getting ready to offer handsets for as little as Rs 3,500, against the currently available minimum price of over Rs 8,000.
So, if the government is looking for a healthy industry, as it must, it will be better to clear the policy on M&As so that only those who really want 3G spectrum to offer 3G services will bid for it.
Mobile operators awaiting for spectrum availability from the defence ministry to start 3G mobile services may be disappointed to know that armed forces are far from vacating any radio waves in the near future
As many as 342 aspirants, including AT&T, DLF and Deutsche Telecom-MoserBaer who failed to get new telecom licences in the last round, may get to bid for spectrum for launching next generation (3G) mobile services.The department of telecom (DoT) is understood to have mooted the proposal to allow those who had applied for licenses between September 25, 2007 and October 1, 2007, to participate in the next generation 3G mobile telephony services.
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