5G rollout started in India in October this year with two of the biggest telecom service providers Reliance Jio and Airtel announcing the rollout. While Airtel has launched 5G services, Jio’s 5G services are still available in beta. Reliance Jio 5G services are available on invite-only basis right now in the cities they have been rolled out in.
Reliance Jio 5G services are available in Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Varanasi, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai, Bengaluru, Nathdwara (a town in Rajasthan), and all the 33 district headquarters of Gujarat. Gujarat is the first state in India where 5G services from Jio are available across the state.
Airtel is offering its 5G services in 12 major cities across the country. These include Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Siliguri, Nagpur, Varanasi, Panipat, Gurugram, Guwahati, and Patna.
NIA set the deadline for telecom companies
He further said that the Department of Telecom (DoT) has specified rollout obligations in the Notice Inviting Application (NIA) for auction of access spectrum. Any specific city/ metro for deployment of 5G services in the country has not been mentioned.
As per the NIA for auction of access spectrum and license conditions, the minimum rollout obligations are required to be met over a period of five years in a phased manner from the date of allocation of spectrum. Further expansion of mobile networks beyond the mandatory rollout obligations, depends upon the techno-commercial considerations of the TSPs.
