Mumbai/New Delhi: India’s 5G auctions are likely to be pushed to the first quarter of 2022 at the earliest, with the Department of Telecommunications currently preoccupied with ensuring network stability in the midst of the pandemic and critical decisions awaited on spectrum availability and pricing.“It is unlikely that auctions will happen this year and will get postponed,” a senior government official said, asking not to be identified. The government netted almost Rs 78,000 crore from a sale of 4G airwaves in March, of which about Rs 22,000 crore was received upfront before the close of the previous financial year.There are important operational issues that need sorting out, which will take time, officials and industry executives said. If DoT decides to offer these fresh bands, it will need to seek pricing recommendations from Trai , which will have to run a consultation process, which will again take time.The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has earmarked only spectrum in the 3.3-3.6 GHz bands for 5G services. Trai has pegged the base price of 5G airwaves at Rs 492 crore per unit, which telcos say is too high and would not find any bidders. Roughly 300 million Indians still use feature phones and many are still transiting to 4G from 2G.

Source: Economic Times May 06, 2021 02:44 UTC