In a major setback to the ongoing preparations to test the possibility of 5G rollout in India, the Parliamentary Panel on IT in a recent report has asserted that India is currently unprepared for rolling out the latest 5G telecom services. The report has blamed the government’s lack of clarity over the past sometimes that may derail its launch in India.
The report comes after telecom major Airtel launched a pilot for 5G services in Hyderabad on a commercial network using its liberalized 1800MHz spectrum through Non-Standalone (NSA) network technology.
The Union government is looking to rake in revenue to the tune of Rs 54,000 crore ($7.4 billion) from the telecom sector in FY22, this, however, does not include proceeds from a 5G spectrum auction.
According to the IT Panel headed by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, “sufficient preparatory work has not been undertaken for the launching of 5G services in India. As such, India has not moved beyond the modest beginning stage as compared to other countries in the world.”
The 5G trials are likely to be launched in metro cities soon followed by other parts of the country. The report, meanwhile, has also not ruled out a delay in the rollout of 5G technology in India citing previous experiences of the rollout of mobile network technologies including 2G, 3G, and 4G.
The report further said the network technology may be expected towards the end of 2021 or early 2022, and even then the deployment would be partial.
