Airtel to DoT: Make guidelines for 5G devices to support all spectrum bands

Bharti Airtel has written to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to formulate guidelines for mandating that new 5G devices launched or sold in India must support all existing bands for 5G in the country, according to a Financial Express report.

Airtel also highlighted that new devices should support dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) while dual-SIM handsets should have 2G, 3G, and 4G support on both slots.

In its communication to the telecom department, it noted that 50% of smartphone users in India change or upgrade their handsets after two years of usage, and any further delay in creating a supportive device ecosystem would hamper India’s 5G leadership ambitions.

Currently a majority of the 5G smartphones launched by device makers in India support 3.5GHz band only, whereas 5G services can be provided using multiple existing frequency bands and a new radio interface.

In the spectrum auctions conducted by the telecom department in March, telcos acquired airwaves across multiple bands, sans 700MHz band, anticipating their future use for launching 5G services.

“However, the provision of 5G services in such existing multiple spectrum bands can only happen with the availability of handsets if the minimum features to support 5G services are ensured,” the Sunil Mittal-led telco was quoted as saying by the publication.

The second-largest Indian telco recently switched on its 5G trial network in Gurgaon’s Cyber Hub in the Millennium city and in Mumbai’s Phoenix Mall in Lower Parel, ETTelecom previously reported.

Airtel’s Gurgaon site is operating in the 3500MHz band using Ericsson’s 5G gear and is delivering a throughput of over 1Gbps. For 5G network trial in Mumbai, it has partnered with Finland’s Nokia.

The DoT had allocated 5G trial spectrum to Airtel in the 3500MHz, 28GHz, and 700MHz in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Bengaluru to develop India-relevant use cases for the fifth-generation wireless mobile broadband technology. The department had also allotted spectrum to Jio and Vodafone Idea in the same bands.

Airtel is currently working with Oppo, OnePlus, Vivo, Realme and Apple to test its 5G trial network.

It also became the first telco to test its 5G network over a live network in Hyderabad using liberalized spectrum.

On the other hand, India’s third-largest telecom operator Vodafone Idea also kicked off its 5G trials in Pune and Gandhinagar in partnership with Ericsson and Nokia, as per the telco’s managing director and CEO Ravinder Takkar

Market leader Reliance Jio also started its 5G trials in Navi Mumbai to test its own 5G technology.