NEW DELHI: The 5G services would be badly impacted if the government doesn’t allocate 6 GHz spectrum for telecom operators, the Cellular Operator Association of India (COAI) said on Tuesday.
Briefing media on Tuesday, Director General of COAI S P Kochhar also said 5G spectrum allocation done in August 2022 is not sufficient to cover the entire country. “Right now, about 720 MHz spectrum that telcos have in the mid-band range is not enough for the requirements. 6GHz will be ideal for densely populated areas, especially urban locations,” said Kochhar.
The telecom body said 5G download speed would be reduced by 80 per cent if only 720 MHz is allocated to 5G. Currently, the radio waves in the 6 GHz band are partly used for satellite operations by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) in the country. Recently, the GSM Association (GSMA) has reiterated that India should identify and support the 6 GHz band spectrum for the expansion of next-generation or 5G services.
The industry body, which represents all three private telecom operators including Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea is of the view mid-bands like 6 GHz provides a balance of wide coverage and capacity - critical to rapid and cost-efficient deployments of 5G mobile networks & meet the exponentially increasing data demands.
“In addition to the cost hike, densification on a large scale would negatively impact the commitments made by India in reducing the country’s carbon reduction and related green objectives,” added Kochhar.