Centre asks telecos to gear up for 5G launch

New Delhi: Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday 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. The DoT has received payment of around Rs17,876 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 Rs1.5 lakh crore worth of bids, with Mukesh Ambani's Jio cornering nearly half of all the airwaves sold with a Rs87,946.93 crore bid. Bharti Enterprises founder and Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said that his company Bharti Airtel received a spectrum allocation letter within a few hours of making upfront payment to the DoT.

"In my over 30 years of first-hand experience with DoT, this is a first! Business as it should be. Leadership at work-Right at the top and at the helm of telecom. What a change! change that can transform this nation – power its dreams to be a developed nation," Mittal said.

Airtel acquired 19,867.8 MHz spectrum by securing a pan-India footprint of 3.5 GHz and 26 GHz bands and selected purchase of radio waves in low and mid-band spectrum for Rs 43,039.63 crore.