The Broadband India Forum (BIF) has expressed strong disappointment and serious concern over the National Frequency Allocation Plan (NFAP) 2025, as the document fails to address some of the most urgent and foundational spectrum requirements needed to deliver sustainable, affordable, inclusive, and future-ready broadband connectivity across India.
While the NFAP-2025 document is expected to function as a strategic, forward-looking policy instrument one that reflects government intent, global technology trends and outcomes of stakeholder consultations, the complete omission of the lower 6 gigahertz (GHz) band for which government has already declared its intent when it issued draft gazette notification on May 16, 2025 and when it was announced in public forums including on World Wi-Fi Day 2025, comes as a major shock and setback and reflects a missed opportunity for strengthening India’s digital and innovation ecosystem.
Keeping in view the strategic importance of the lower 6 GHz band for a Viksit Bharat and the government’s already declared intent to delicence it vide the draft gazette notification, it would have been apt if a reference to the same had been made, with a covering remark that operational and implementation details would be notified subsequently through a separate General Spectrum Release (GSR). This absence is particularly troubling given the fact that the lower 6 GHz band is globally harmonised and deployed in a license exempt manner in 97 countries till date and with several others already waiting to follow suit. Also, for enabling modern, advanced & next generation Wi-Fi (Wi-Fi6E, Wi-Fi7 & Wi-Fi8), this band is seen as indispensable for delivering high capacity, low-latency, and cost-efficient connectivity across homes, enterprises, campuses, public Wi Fi hotspots, and smart infrastructure.
By failing to even provide a forward-looking reference, NFAP 2025 denies stakeholders much-needed policy clarity and weakens confidence in India’s long-term Wi-Fi and innovation roadmap.
In this context, the exclusion of the lower 6 GHz band from NFAP 2025 is not merely an oversight; it represents a clear departure from an already articulated policy direction. Such inconsistency introduces avoidable uncertainty and risks slowing momentum for innovation and the deployment of modern, advanced Wi-Fi technologies across the country.
Wi-Fi continues to be the most affordable and widely used broadband access technology in India, playing a decisive role in indoor connectivity, public access networks, and last-mile digital inclusion. Access to the lower 6 GHz band is essential to support high-growth and high-impact applications such as digital education, telemedicine, augmented reality (AR)/virtual reality (VR)/extended reality (XR), cloud gaming, metaverse platforms, digital twins, and immersive enterprise solutions. These use cases demand large contiguous spectrum blocks capable of delivering high throughput with low latency at scale; requirements that cannot be sustainably met without the license exempt assignment of the lower 6 GHz band.
By overlooking this reality, NFAP 2025 risks constraining India’s ability to harness Wi-Fi as a key driver of innovation, productivity, and socio-economic transformation.
In BIF’s view, the NFAP must demonstrate policy continuity, coherence, and clarity. The complete silence on the lower 6 GHz band in NFAP 2025 runs counter to these principles and risks delaying the rollout of advanced Wi-Fi networks that are critical to deliver sustainable, affordable, inclusive, and future-ready broadband and achieve India’s digital ambitions.
Commenting on this, president, BIF, said, “BIF is deeply disappointed that NFAP 2025 makes no mention of the lower 6 GHz band, especially when a draft gazette notification for its delicensing was already issued earlier this year, clearly signalling government intent. At the very least, the NFAP should have acknowledged this direction and indicated that operational details would follow under GSR. The absence of such recognition is a setback for innovation and for the deployment of advanced Wi-Fi needed to support use cases such as e-education, e-health, immersive technologies, and next generation digital services. We urge the government to address this gap and provide the policy clarity necessary to enable affordable, ubiquitous, and future-ready broadband connectivity.”
