Rama Krishna Sangem
Hyderabad will be among the 13 cities in India that get 5G mobile services by August 15, this year. The other 12 cities are: Delhi, Gurugram, Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Jamnagar, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Lucknow, Chennai, Chandigarh and Bangalore. Other major cities will get this in a phased manner. The 5G roll out will mark the Independence Day, conclusion of 75th anniversary of Azadi celebrations.
PM Modi first directed the DoT (Department of Telecommunications) to launch 5G in the country by August 15, but till a few weeks ago, there was uncertainty on this. The details and date of auction of spectrum for 5G were not yet decided. But, the Centre on June 15 announced the date of auctions – July 26 – there is a rush to meet the deadline of roll out of the 5G mobile services in these cities.
Already, mobile towers of three major players – Jio, Airtel and Vodafone – have tested 5G signals in Hyderabad and the results are satisfactory. The government will auction 72GHz of spectrum for a period of 20 years to the bidders. In all, nine types of spectrum waves – 600MHz, 700, 800, 900,1800, 2100, 23,00 and 3300MHz in low frequency and 26GHz in high frequency will be auctioned.
A professor from IIT Hyderabad who is aware of the developments told Excel India on June 16 that it wont take much time to roll out the services, once the auctions are held. “The mobile service providers and the other technical players are waiting to roll out 5G services on mobile phones, so it is possible to meet the deadline of August 15 to launch the same, ” he said.
Thousands of mobile phone users have 5G enabled handsets,so they don’t need to upgrade but others will rush to shops once the services are launched in the city. If the handsets cost on an average around Rs 3,700, the phone bills per month (estimated) will go up by at least 25 per cent, after GST, depending on the services we use. Still it may be worth it, say the mobile phone executives. 5G will be 10 times faster than 4G in Hyderabad.
After a long wait, the Centre has decided to commence auctions for 5G spectrum in July. We are almost 2-3 years behind the developed West like the US and China are using 5G technologies since 2019. A lot of time has gone in deciding whether private companies can be allowed to buy spectrum directly from the DoT for their captive uses. TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) took a lot of time to frame guidelines for the aunction.
Now the Centre is expecting a base price of Rs 4.5 lakh from these auctions. The amount may not go up from this figure as three telecom companies – Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodaphone Idea (VI) are not ready to shell down astronomical amounts on bagging 5G rights. The auctions will be for a period of 20 years, but the excess broadband can be surrendered by the companies after a period of 10 years.
Many other concessions were given to the telecom companies. These moves will save the companies from shelling down huge amounts upfront. The Centre is well aware that any burden on telecom companies will only result in two things – either increasing the burden on consumers or removing at least a weak player – Vodafone – from the field. Nobody wants to happen that.
Are we ready for 5G?
What about mobile phone consumers or user? are we ready to take advantages out of 5G technologies that will be available to us? Unless one is prepared to know the all benefits of 5G, most consumers may end up using this latest technology too just for entertainment – watching and downloading streaming content. This we did with 4G too.
5G is much more than that. It will bring to us high speed data transfer which can be used to improve our performance in health, education, agriculture, industrial and business sectors. Imagine a 5G enabled ambulance where a patient’s medical reports reach the hospital even before the vehicle reaches. The duty doctor or even specialist can instantly begin treatment. By sitting in your office, you can use drones in agricultural fields.
Telecom companies need to take up some educational drive before selling their services.
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