Big cities will be 1st to get 5G in 2022: DoT
Mpost bureau
New Delhi: The Fifth Generation or 5G telecom services are set to be rolled out in selected cities in India in 2022. The cities, which are set to get the 5G telecom services in 2022, include Gurugram, Bangalore, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Delhi, Jamnagar, Ahmadabad, Chennai, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Pune, and Gandhinagar.
Leading telecom service providers Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea, have established 5G trial sites in these cities. "These metros and big cities would be the first places for the launch of 5G services in the country, next year," the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said on Monday.
The fifth generation is the latest upgrade in the Long-Term Evolution (LTE) mobile broadband networks. While 4G was a great leap forward, allowing people to stream music and video on the go, 5G is designed to connect many more types of devices than smartphones and offers far higher speed and capacity.
Apart from the leading telecom operators and smartphone manufacturers, the government is also involved actively to facilitate the rollout of 5G services. The Department of Telecom has roped in leading research institutions for the development and testing of 5G technology.
Eight agencies — Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, Indian Institute of Science (IISC) Bangalore, Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering & Research (SAMEER) and Centre of Excellence in Wireless Technology (CEWiT) — are involved in the research project called 'Indigenous 5G Test bed project'.
The indigenous 5G Test bed project began in 2018 and is set to be completed by December 31, 2021. The project has been funded by the Department of Telecom. The department has spent Rs 224 crore on it.
"Costing Rs 224 crore, the project is likely to be completed by December 31, 2021, paving the way for end-to-end testing of 5G User Equipment (UEs) and network equipment by 5G stakeholders developing 5G products/services/use cases, including indigenous start-ups, SMEs, Academia and Industry in the country," the Department of Telecom said.
The indigenous 5G test bed, a visionary technology development project initiated in telecom space, will enable development, testing and proliferation of 5G technology system components, cross-sectoral use cases, besides setting up the foundation for the development of "6G Technology landscape" in the country, it added.
