India 5G launch: Prime Minister Narendra Modi to launch 5G service in select cities

Alongside the launch of 5G services, Prime Minister Modi will also inaugurate the 6th edition of the India Mobile Congress 2022 in New Delhi.
India 5G launch

India 5G launch

On Saturday, October 1, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the sixth India Mobile Congress 2022 in New Delhi and officially launch 5G services in a few places, the government announced on Friday.
“The 5G to be launched by the Prime Minister in select cities will progressively cover the entire country over the next couple of years,” the Ministry of Communications said in a statement. “5G can unleash new economic opportunities and societal benefits giving it the potential for being a transformational force for Indian society … The cumulative economic impact of 5G on India is expected to reach $450 Billion by 2035.”
Spectrum auctions end with bids of over Rs 1 lakh crore
In India's largest-ever spectrum auction, which took place last month, bids totalling more than Rs 1.5 lakh crore came in after seven days and 40 rounds of bidding, defying earlier predictions that the process would take less than three days to complete.
Out of the total 72 GHz that were up for grabs, 51.2 GHz were sold, or over 71%. At the time, Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Union Minister of Communications, claimed that the entire amount of spectrum sold was "good enough" to cover all of the country's circles and predicted that 5G will have "excellent coverage" in the following two to three years.
Service rollout specifics
Telecom companies have disclosed how they intend to roll out 5G services on their network, despite the fact that the government has not yet identified the cities where the PM would first provide 5G services. Reliance Jio, who placed the highest bid of more than Rs 88,000 crore in this year's 5G spectrum auctions, announced in August that it would roll out high-speed mobile internet services on its 5G network by this Diwali in major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata.
“By December 2023, which is less than 18 months from today, we will deliver Jio 5G to every town, every taluka, and every tehsil of our country,” Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani explained during RIL’s 45th annual general meeting back in August.
Additionally, by the end of 2023, all urban areas of the nation will have access to 5G on Bharti Airtel's network, according to the second-highest bidder in the auction. The business added that by March 2024, 5G would be accessible in major rural and urban locations.
Vodafone Idea (Vi), the third-highest bidder in the auctions, has not yet publicly disclosed its 5G launch plans. Adani Data Networks, a division of the Adani Group and the fourth participant in the spectrum race, has announced that for the time being it will exclusively concentrate on enterprise use cases and refrain from providing consumer-led 5G services. It exclusively purchased spectrum in the 26 GHz band, which is ideal for 5G business-level use cases, at the spectrum auction.
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