The auctioning of 6 GHz band of spectrum for 5G services is being opposed by the tech industry, reasoning that these airwaves have not yet found a use case anywhere else in the world. With an emphasis on delicencing 6 GHz for WiFi services, the IT sector highlighted that there are already enough spectrum bands for 5G and its future uses. They also added that the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is working towards allocating a separate spectrum in 7-24 GHz bands as well as in 4800 MHz band for 5G.
In a letter to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), the Broadband India Forum (BIF) pressed its demands for delicencing the 6 GHz to make broadband provided in rural and remote areas more affordable. This comes in response to the telcos wanting to auction the 6 GHz band for commercial deployment in the future.
At present, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) partly uses the 6 GHz band for satellite operations. It provides speeds of up to 10 Gbps. The telcos stated that the WiFi services provided by technology companies on 6 GHz would be similar to the ones they themselves provide. But they will use the band practically for free and not be regulated. The tech industry countered by stating that countries with lesser requirements have delicenced the entire 6GHz spectrum band for greater broadband proliferation through WiFi. In order to meet the goal of having 50 million WiFi hotspots at every corner of the country, there need to be more delicenced spectrums, added BIF.
