India aims to roll out 5G services by October 12

NEW DELHI: India is gearing up for the roll out of 5G services by October 12, Union Communications, Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Thursday.

Talking to media persons, Vaishnaw said 5G services will be scaled up after launch and should reach every part of the country in the next two to three years.

"We are planning to roll out 5G services rapidly.

The telecom operators are working in that regard and installations are being done.

Hopefully, we should be launching 5G services by October 12 and then would further scale up in cities and towns.

Our expectations are that 5G should reach every part of the country in the next two to three years.

We will ensure that it remains affordable. The industry is focusing on both urban as well as rural areas," he said.

The Centre on Thursday launched the 5G RoW (Right of Way) application form on the Gati Shakti sanchar portal.

The Minister said a common portal for all states has been made to have a central stop-shop for entry of infrastructure applications and approvals.

Last week, the government has issued spectrum allocation letters to telecom service providers while asking them to prepare for the rollout of 5G services in the country.

With this spectrum allotment, India entered the final stage of rolling out high-speed 5G telecom services.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his address to the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort on Independence Day, said India's "techade" is here as the government is focusing on technologies such as 5G, semiconductor manufacturing and optical fibre cables.

These technologies, PM Modi said, will bring about a revolution at the grassroots level.

"India's techade is here! With 5G, semiconductor manufacturing and OFCs in villages, we are bringing a revolution through Digital India to the grassroots level," he said at Red Fort.

5G is the fifth-generation mobile network capable of transmitting a large set of data at a very rapid speed.

In comparison to 3G and 4G, 5G has a very low latency which will enhance user experiences in various sectors.

Low latency describes the efficiency to process a very high volume of data messages with a minimal delay.

The 5G rollout is also expected to bring more development in remote data monitoring in sectors such as mining, warehousing, telemedicine, and manufacturing, among others. Reliance Jio, Adani group, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea were the four major participants in the spectrum auction.

Department of Telecom received total bids worth Rs 1.50 lakh crore from the recently concluded auction.

5G services are expected to be about 10 times faster than 4G.