As the buzz around 5G gains momentum with quite a few countries launching commercial services, India will not be much behind. As per South Korean major Samsung, it can launch the latest generation of telecom services in 3-6 months in India after the government conducts spectrum auctions.
“5G in India happens 3-6 months after the spectrum auctions…we are trying to bring all the use cases that happen around the globe and trying to understand what are the relevant use cases for India,” Srinivasan Sundararajan, head of network business at Samsung India, said during the Mobile World Congress (MWC).Samsung, which has rolled out the state-of-the-art 4G network of Reliance Jio, said it expects to bring out a similar technology for 5G also. The company has already launched 5G commercial services in countries like the US, South Korea, etc. Asked if Samsung is in talks with mobile operators for 5G rollout, Sundararajan said it’s too early to do that as first spectrum auctions have to happen and there should be a device ecosystem.
Samsung is one the few companies that has already launched 5G smart devices. Asked about the 5G trials in India, Sundararajan said, “We are ready with the trials and right now we are figuring what are the right use cases. We are in discussions with the department of telecommunications regarding our trial. Operator is agnostic when it comes to 5G trials. We are discussing about holding the trial in Delhi.”
Asked about the timeline, he said they have not discussed any specific timeline with DoT. “We are showing all the use cases to DoT and what we have commercially rolled out and what we have put on trial in other countries,” he added.
Although it is expected that the 5G technology in telecom can create an economic impact of $1 trillion in India by 2035 but high reserve price proposed by regulator Trai can be a dampner for India’s plans around the technology. Operators feel that it will be very difficult for them to buy spectrum at such high prices given their financially strained balance sheets. Going by the proposed price, if an operator wants to offer full-scale 5G services, it needs to get around 100 MHz spectrum, in 3,300-3,600 MHz band, meaning the telco has to cough up around Rs 49,000 crore.
(Travel for this report was sponsored by Samsung India)

Source: financialexpress.com