The 5G spectrum auctions are not far from here. The industry has been making recommendations on what is required and what the government and the sector regulator should do to make 5G successful in India. Along the same lines, Gopal Vittal, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Bharti Airtel said the government must give out E-band spectrum for backhaul with the 5G airwaves during the spectrum auctions. Vittal said that not doing so would put the 5G game in serious jeopardy.
Airtel CEO Also Requested for Solutions in RoW Issues and More
According to a PTI report, Airtel CEO also asked the government to address the Right of Way (RoW) issues along with problems in the Service Level Agreement (SLA) of BharatNet and more. Vittal stressed about the E-band spectrum getting wasted with the government as it has never been allocated or given out to the telcos. However, with 5G, the E-band spectrum would play a major role for backhaul. India currently struggles with backhaul be it fibre or wireless. However, the E-band spectrum should solve a lot of those problems. With the E-band spectrum, large amounts of backhaul can be enabled from the mobile tower to carry broadband traffic. Vittal said that if the E-band spectrum is not given out for backhaul, it might mean that 5G won’t be successful in India. These are strong words and claims from an industry executive which needs to be taken into consideration by the government. With 5G, the amount of data following through the backhaul would increase and thus E-band spectrum would make a lot of sense. Vittal noted that getting approvals from different state governments is a complex process and a lot of subsidies are also stuck with the Indian government despite the telco making the investments. These are some of the problems that Bharti Airtel CEO talked about at a post Budget webinar session titled ‘Road and Infoway connectivity to all rural habitations’.
