Airtel, Jio and Vi Need the Govt to Side with Them to Make 5G Successful

Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea (Vi) are going to need the government at their side when the discussion of private 5G networks comes around. The telcos have demonstrated many use cases around 5G. But the common theme amongst most of these use-cases was that they were built for enterprises. The consumer-focused use cases were rare, and it makes sense because consumers just need to browse the internet, stream videos, play games, and do video calls – all of which can be done via a strong 4G network.

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The telcos have been planning for the 5G spectrum auction and must already know the kind of airwaves they want for rolling out commercial 5G networks. But things might go a little bad for the telcos if the government doesn’t side with them.

There’s a big battle over private 5G going on between the telcos and the tech companies. The tech companies want the government to do administrative allocation of airwaves for private 5G networks. This, however, the telcos don’t like.

Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the representative body of the private telcos, wrote to Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister for Communication, saying that the government must go through the auction route for spectrum allocation, and it should be only provided to the licensed access service providers.

This will be to ensure that the telcos can see their revenues growing by setting up private 5G networks for the enterprises. COAI said that if the telcos are ignored, and the administrative allocation of airwaves happens, there would be no viable business case for rolling out 5G.

The industry body representing the telcos cited global data and said that incremental revenues only come from 5G with the enterprise services. If the telcos see that their enterprise services won’t be required in India related to 5G, they might not go for a commercial rollout.