The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) recently held a preliminary meeting on trials of 5G spectrum with telecom service providers and equipment vendors to get a status update on their preparedness and expectations from the government.
In the meeting, several use cases were reportedly proposed in domains like healthcare, education, agriculture, surveillance and enhanced mobile broadband and fixed wireless access (FWA).
As per industry sources, the DoT will now consult with the Wireless Planning and Coordination (WPC) to discuss spectrum allocation. After the WPC approval, DoT will allocate the trial spectrum to its licensees, telecom service providers, which can then choose to partner with vendors such as Nokia, Huawei, Ericsson, ZTE and Samsung.
Further, any field trial in respect of 5G will be carried out only through licensed telecom service providers in a restrictive, limited geographical area and for specific use case.
The government plans to hold 5G spectrum auctions in April-June 2020.
