Today, the Telecom department’s proposal to conduct a spectrum auction was granted by the Union Cabinet. Through the auction, spectrum will be assigned to the successful bidders for offering 5G services to public and enterprises. Overall 72097.85 MHz of spectrum with a validity period of two decades will be put to auction to be held by the end of July this year.
The auction will be held for spectrum in various low, mid and high frequency bands. It is expected that the Mid and HIgh band spectrum will be used by Telecom Service Providers to introduce 5G technology-based services able to offer speed and capacities which would be about 10 times higher than what is possible through the present 4G services.
There is no compulsory need for the first time ever, to make upfront payment by the successful bidders. Payments for spectrum can be made in 20 equal annual installments to be paid in advance at the beginning of every year. According to the Indian government, the 4G ecosystem created in the country is now leading to 5G high-level development.
The 5G test bed setup in 8 top technology institutes of India is speeding up launch of domestic 5G technology in India.The Cabinet has decided to allow the development and setting up of Private Captive Networks to spur a new wave of innovations in Industry 4.0 applications like Artificial Intelligence, agriculture, health care and etc.