As per industry sources, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has extended the validity of the 5G trials licence to Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel for another six months.
Considering the telcos’ requests for more time to test their 5G networks, the licence, which was to expire in November 2021, has now been extended till the end of May 2022.
The move is set to push the 5G spectrum auction to the second half of 2022. Earlier, the government had said that it plans to hold the next auctions in the January-March quarter of 2022.
Telcos have cited lack of readiness of the 5G ecosystem partners as one of the reasons for seeking extension of the trial time period
Further, a lot of work needs to be done on spectrum availability and its quantum. Most spectrum is yet to be vacated by the Ministry of Defence and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). India’s Ministry of Defence currently holds spectrum in the 3300 – 3400 MHz band while ISRO holds spectrum in the 3400 – 3425 MHz band.
Moreover, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is yet to give base price recommendation on a number of bands including the 700 MHz, 3.3 -3.6 GHz and the millimeter wave band. The DoT has recently sought base price recommendations from the TRAI.
Earlier in May 2021, the DoT allotted 5G trial spectrum for six months in the 700 MHz, 3.5 GHz and 26 GHz bands, paving the way for telcos to partner and develop India-relevant use cases on 5G. Since then all the operators have entered into number of partnership and formed strategic alliances to test and develop various consumer and enterprise use cases.
