NEW DELHI: Sunil Mittal-led-Bharti Airtel on Wednesday urged the government to provide 5G spectrum free of cost to the telecom operators in order to take the 5G services in every part of the country. Airtel Chief Executive Officer Gopal Vittal said the amount meant for buying spectrum can be invested in the capex rather than on spectrum.
“One of the ideas I would like to propose today is to actually take a particular band. Let’s say 700 megahertz band and allocate it with a very stringent obligation. But do that free of cost so that we can invest the money in the access and the capex rather than on spectrum.
This is just one idea to offer in order to take it to every part of the country,” said Vittal Telecom operators have urged the government to cut the base price of spectrum by more than half for the upcoming 5G auction on many occasions in the past.
Vittal was speaking at post-Budget webinar titled ‘Road and Infoway connectivity to all rural habitations’. Vittal suggested many ways to connect the rural population with the internet. He highlighted that for broadband infrastructure, backhaul is absolutely essential.
Backhaul is a part of a satellite network that serves as an intermediate between the main network and the small networks used for distribution to other smaller channels.
He also emphasized to allocate E-band spectrum, which represents the frequency range from 60 GHz to 90 GHz spectrum, to the telcos as soon as possible. If the E-band spectrum doesn’t come in along with the access spectrum, the 5G gain will be in serious jeopardy.
“This E-band can enable a large amount of backhaul from the mobile tower to carry the broadband traffic. Unfortunately, this spectrum is sitting with the government, and has not been allocated to the players. I think this is a waste of a very precious resource. My view is that we must find some way of bundling it with 5G spectrum so that it is available for use in order to build out 5G,” said Vittal.