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Telecom operators have urged the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to deploy the upper portion of the 6 GHz spectrum band for 5G services in India and added that the most optimal allocation for the country in the 6 GHz band is to identify the entire 5925-7125 MHz (1200 MHz spectrum) for International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) applications.
The full 6 GHz spectrum band, which offers internet speeds up to 10 Gbps, ranges from 5,925-to-7,125 MHz, and delicensing spectrum in the 6 GHz band will hamper roll out of 5G advance and 6G services in the country, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) that represents the sector said.
“We further recommend that DoT/ Wireless Planning and Coordination Wing (WPC) deliberate on the lower part of the 6 GHz band (5925-6425 MHz), and take it up for inclusion in IMT after taking a considered decision as per our suggestion. However, as a matter of immediate importance, we request DoT/ WPC to continue supporting the upper part of the 6 GHz band (6425-7125 MHz) for IMT in the Asia Pacific Tele-community Conference Preparatory Group for World Radiocommunication Conference 2023 (APG-2023),” SP Kochhar, Director General, COAI said in the letter.
Addressing the letter to Apurva Chandra, Secretary, DoT, he said that it is important to note that India had already supported this part of the spectrum for IMT during the previous WRC meetings.
Additional spectrum
The letter dated August 10 also mentioned that 6 GHz band is the only additional contiguous spectrum available in mid-band for IMT, beyond what has already been put up in auction.
“Hence it is important for future growth of 5G and beyond technologies including roadmap for 6G introduction in India. This spectrum will be crucial as India firms up action plan for Bharat 6G. Delicensing this important chunk of spectrum will seriously hamper the deployment of 5G+/6G In India,” Kochhar said.
The DoT had delicensed or made the 600 MHz of spectrum freely available in the 5 GHz band in 2018. COAI said that delicensed 255 MHz in the 600 MHz spectrum is unutilised in the absence of device ecosystem support.
“We believe that not using the available spectrum optimally and demanding more spectrum on top of that would lead to waste of such a scarce available valuable resource,” he added.
COAI represents telecom operators including Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea.
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