India unprepared for roll-out of 5G: House panel on IT

NEW DELHI: India is entirely unprepared to roll out 5G telecom services, the parliamentary panel on information technology said in a report adopted on Wednesday, blaming the government’s “laidback” approach to the launch of the technology. A telecom official said 5G trials were set to start soon and a rollout was likely by early 2022.

The panel, headed by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, concluded that “sufficient preparatory work has not been undertaken for 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”.

On January 28, telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, at a National Informatics Centre Services Incorporated (NICSI) event to launch government e-office tools, had said, “We lagged in 2G, 3G and 4G but in 5G India should move at a speed faster than the world with made-in-india 5G. We have made a test bed and we are soon going to permit it. Core network should be Indian.”

Government officials familiar with the matter said the 5G trials are likely to commence soon and the technology will be rolled out across metropolitan cities by early 2022. “It will be rolled out in the metros first and then percolate to other parts of the country,” an official said on condition of anonymity.

In its report, the parliamentary committee raised concerns that the advent of 5G services in the country may be further delayed, judging from previous experience. “While 2G was deployed globally in 1991, it was deployed in India only in 1995; 3G was deployed globally in 1998 but deployed in India ten years later... 4G services were launched in India seven years after their global launching in 2008... India is likely to witness its deployment only by the end of 2021 or early part of 2022, that too partially,” said the report, a copy of which was sen by HT.

Several countries around the world have already deployed 5G, and Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd’s chairman Mukesh Ambani said in December that his company would do so in “the second half of 2021.” That may not happen because India is yet to auction radio waves (spectrum) for 5G.

Government officials familiar with the matter said that the issues, as far as the availability of spectrum were concerned, have been resolved after meetings with the cabinet secretary. “The concerned ministries and the cabinet secretary have met regarding spectrum availability. Sufficient spectrum will be available,” the official mentioned above said.

Concerns flagged by the committee include lack of preparedness, spectrum issues and, uncertainty around sale of radio waves for 5G, among others.