5G services will be launched in India by October 12 – IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw

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Business News. Union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday said that 5G services will be launched in India by October 12 after which it will be scaled further in cities & towns.

“Our expectations are that 5G should reach in every part of the country in the next two to three years. We’ll ensure that it remains affordable. The industry is focusing on both urban as well as rural areas,” he said.

“We are planning to roll out 5G services rapidly, telecom operators are working in that regard & installations are being done. Hopefully, we should be launching 5G services by October 12 & then would further scale up in cities & towns,” he added.

The DoT has received payment of around Rs 17,876 crore from service providers — Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, Adani Data Networks and Vodafone Idea for spectrum they won in a recent auction.

The country’s biggest ever auction of telecom spectrum received a record Rs 1.5 lakh crore worth of bids, with Mukesh Ambani’s Jio cornering nearly half of all the airwaves sold with a Rs 87,946.93 crore bid.

Vaishnaw earlier asked telecom service providers to gear up for 5G launch, post the issuance of spectrum allocation letters.

In a first, the Department of Telecom (DoT) has issued spectrum assignment letters on the same day the successful bidders of radio waves made upfront payments.

“5G Update:Spectrum assignment letter issued. Requesting TSPs to prepare for 5G launch,” Vaishnaw wrote on a social media platform.