10 Times faster 5G services by March 2023 in India, says union minister
India will get 5G services - 10 times faster than 4G - by March 2023, union minister Ashwini Vaishnav has said, a day after the cabinet cleared the auction for the 5G spectrum.
With a validity of 20 years, a total of 72 GHz (gigahertz) of the spectrum is set to be put to auction by July end.
"Telecom is the primary source of digital consumption and is very important to bring trusted solution in telecom.
India has its own stack of 4G like radio, equipment, and handset and similar goals are being eyed for the 5G technology," the minister of railways, communications and electronics, and information technology told news agency ANI.
Vaishnaw is currently in Paris for the VivaTech 2022 event, an event for the startups.
"5G is ready in the lab. By the end of March 2023, 5G will also be ready to deploy in the field," he added.
In a statement on Wednesday, the government said that the Department of Telecommunications proposal to conduct a spectrum auction through which spectrum will be assigned to the successful bidders for providing 5G services to the public and enterprises was cleared by the union cabinet.
"The Telecom Sector Reforms will benefit the spectrum auction announced in September 2021.
The reforms include zero Spectrum Usage Charges (SUC) on the spectrum acquired in the upcoming auction, providing significant relief to the service providers regarding the operating cost of telecom networks.
Further, the requirement of submitting a financial bank guarantee equivalent to one annual installment has also been done away with," it further underlined.