5G Rollout in India Could Face Potential Delay Due to Coronavirus

While telecom operators in India are not interested in participating 5G spectrum auction, analysts now predict that the government itself will have a tough time in auctioning the ‘costly’ 5G spectrum. An ET Telecom report says the government will likely face difficulties in selling the 5G spectrum because of Coronavirus. A few months ago, the DoT approved all the vendors to participate in 5G trials in India, including Huawei. With the Coronavirus outbreak in China, telecom gear makers will face difficulties in manufacturing the required 5G gear. Telcos were bullish on the fact that they do have other vendors like Ericsson and Nokia, which will help in 5G rollout, but Chinese makers like Huawei and ZTE are leading the 5G deployment race.

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5G Launch in India Will Face a Potential Delay

The government is planning to conduct the next spectrum auction in Q1 FY21, where it will auction both 4G and 5G airwaves. However, with the ongoing Coronavirus outbreak in China, the business case will likely to be spoiled and it will put already struggling telcos to stay away from the auction.

“If the coronavirus menace continues for a few more months, the government may find it challenging to auction expensive 5G spectrum before January-February 2021 since a prolonged epidemic would hit 5G network deployments and devices availability in India too, further reducing the business case for local telcos to participate meaningfully in any early 5G airwaves sale this year,” Rajiv Sharma, research head at SBICap Securities said to the publication.