Even as the Indian government on Friday said that stakeholder discussions are on to give a final shape to auction of 5G spectrum for services rollout, telecom regulator TRAI is racing against time to ready its recommendations on the issue by month-end, which will form the basis of the auctions.

Pointing out that the government has planned to conduct auction of 5G in the year 2022, junior Communications Minister Devusinh Chauhan — in a written reply to a question from a fellow parliamentarian in Rajya Sabha (Upper House) last week — said the Department of Telecommunications has sent a reference to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in September 2021 seeking recommendations on auction of spectrum in frequency bands identified for International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) and 5G services.

The Minister, however, did not specify when TRAI recommendations on the subject would come in for the government’s consideration, just saying that the auctions were scheduled to be conducted this year.

Meanwhile, the 5G spectrum allocation issue has whipped up a diverse discussion amongst stakeholders (https://www.trai.gov.in/consultation-paper-auction-spectrum-frequency-bands-identified-imt5g), with several organisations submitting to TRAI that re-allocation of certain C-band spectrum for 5G would interfere with various satellite-based broadcast and communications services — unless proper checks and balances were put in place before the auctions took place, including specifying and maintaining adequate guard bands between satellite and terrestrial telecom services.

In a recent report on the 5G and IMT spectrum issue, the Satcom Industry Association India had said that satellite technology in 28 GHz would be a cost-effective mode to connect the unconnected with high-speed low latency Internet. More than 120 countries had expressed their intentions to follow the ITU decisions and preserve the 27.5-31 GHz and 17.7-21.2 GHz bands for satellite broadband services and this global consensus reaffirmed maintaining the 27.5 GHz and above for FSS.

The report added a large number of companies, including ISRO, have launched several satellites into orbit that are dependent on the 28 GHz Ka-band to receive information transmitted to them from the ground in this frequency band. The impact of the loss of C-band spectrum in the 3.6-3.67 GHz band alone will be felt across the entire INR 700 billion Indian broadcasting industry carrying 900+ registered TV channels to 210 million households in urban and rural India through approximately 1730+ digital platform operators and 50,000+ cable operators.

However, industry sources admitted that re-allocation of spectrum to telcos for 5G services is a foregone conclusion, though every effort would be made to see interferences are reduced as much as possible with an aim to cut the losses to the maximum.

Fiberisation of Telecom Towers: To another question on whether the government was taking any steps increase fiberisation, considering that just 33 per cent of the telecom towers were connected with optical fibre in the country while 70 per cent is the optimal capacity for utilization of 5G services, the Communications Minister Chauhan replied in the affirmative.

“Yes. National Broadband Mission has a target to increase fiberisation of telecom towers to 70% by 2024-25. Plan of action under the Mission include: i)  All villages to have access to broadband; ii)  Accelerate Fiberisation; iii)  Increasing tower density; iv)  Increase fiberisation of telecom towers; v)  Easing of Right of Way (RoW) permissions in coordination with State/UTs & other central ministries,” Chauhan said Friday in parliament.